.~Edelsteine~. Gianfar's Journal- by XiaoRen

[XiaoRen]

Overhauling the Great Library

Lien trudged up the steps of the Pantheon towards the tardis of a library. Cosine had been begging her for days to visit and so she oblidged like the good host she was. Sometimes.

She had not been back to the hall of books since the day they had met Harmodius and Suffocation, though it occured to her that they might be able to do some research on their task.

She could feel Cosine's excitement building in her as they reached the large doors.
"Did you never do anything else with your time?" Lien asked as she pushed the doors open and stepped into the beautiful main hall.

"What else is there?" The goddess answered simply. "Though, in truth I do not know what I used to do with my time. This place is so familiar I must have spent a good deal of time here."

Lien nodded and wandered over to one of the towering bookshelves.
"Makes sense I suppose." She said allowing her eyes to roam over the titles. "Afterall I imagine this place is full of numbers."

"Exactly, and not full of people."

Lien smirked and reached out to touch the spine of a book.
"They are not all bad you know, though I suppose i cannot speak for gods." She said, pulling the book from its place. She gave a bit of a tug as it was wedged in tightly, causing half the row to come tumbling down to the floor.

"Can you do anything without making a mess."

While speaking with Eddard, Gianfar had rearranged the books in a slow, organic way. Cells drifing from bone marrow to blood, coming to rest again where they fit. The activity gave his thoughts a separate channel to pour into, so that they did not flood from his mouth. It allowed his words to be succinct and clear, no more answer than Eddard wanted. But, by the end of their conversation it was clear - organic change would bring the library to order at evolutionary speeds. Perhaps by the next age it would be finished. The problem was the DNA itself. He decided to take them all down and start from scratch. He had spent the day pulling books from the shelves in the back and making piles of them. Seeing each was enough to catalogue it in his mind, but a list would be useful for others, so he had been keeping one.

Just as he went to search for more paper and ink, he heard books falling. I knew that stack looked precarious! But when he turned, the piles still undulated upward, leaning on each other. Nothing was fanned on the floor.

Then he heard a voice. Someone was in the library; he had been so absorbed he hadn’t noticed. He might as well tell them not to bother putting the books back. They might even help him keep taking them down.

By the front stacks he found her, looking annoyed with herself in that way only hosts could, as they argued with their gem. A gem he had not met!

“Hello,” he said brightly, still a little out of breath. His hair was tied up with a ribbon page marker, the silver waves curly with sweat and escaping to stick to his cheeks. The chocolate brown velvet robes were dust silvered and had come off one shoulder.
“You don’t have to put them back in order. They’re all coming down.”

"Not everyone can be as perfect as you." Lien muttered, kneeling down and starting to make the books into a pile. She doubted they were in the correct order but with so many books in this place who was going to notice.

"I would."

Lien ignored her, so absorbed in her recovery task that the new voice made her jump and the books toppled to the floor once more.
"Uh, hello." She said with a small smile as she took in the rather desheveled appearence of the man ... no, god before her.
"Oh, all of them?"

She glanced up at the endless shelves of books and straightened up, brushing the dust off of her red Ao doi.
"That's one hell of a task. My name is Lien, um, sorry for interrupting you."

Within her a feeling of familiarity stirred.
"I recognise him." Cosine said softly.

“Not an errant page left to a shelf, when I am finished. New order can only spring from absolute chaos. I am embracing the Zeitgeist, for once. If you are looking for something specific, I might be able to help you.” He said “might” in a jokingly dour tone. "I am Gianfar.” He dipped his head to her and held out a hand smudged with leather rot and gilding. His arm shook a little with fatigue.

Lien I is the host’s name. Who is the gem, I wonder?
“It is a pleasure to be interrupted. The most onerous tasks are imposed by our own personalities.”

"Zeitgeist?" Lien asked as she picked up one of the books from the floor and brushed the dust from its spine.

"Spirit of the time." Cosine muttered inside her head, watching the gentle looking god as she searched her mind for recognition.

"Onerous?" Lien gave an apologetic smile as she questioned vocabulary once more. Sure she was fluent but she did not study the dictionary. "My vocabulary is not so good. Sorry."

"Forgive my host." The goddess within piped up. "She is not as learned as you or I." A smile crossed the hosts lips for a moment. "I am Numbers, Cosine."

“Onerous, a pain in the a**." He should apologize for speaking difficult English. Gianfar knew all of the Asian languages, but had instinctively answered in the language she’d used with him. He couldn’t place where she was from anyway: Lien was a Chinese name, but she wore a Vietnamese Ao Dai.

"I'm sorry I..." The meaning of the words that accompanied her sudden switch in tone sank in. “Cosine!”

The wary human girl had not even taken his hand to shake it. Now he flung his arms out, sleeves snapping, to grasp her shoulders. Numbers! Was this joy, this shock of recognition? He forgot Lien along with concern for her personal space.

“Arithmisi, Pi, Cheng Dawei...” Names, like wooden beads strung on dowel sliding and clicking together back into time. They had known each other in his first life, older than any of these mortal monikers, before names. Cosine had so few…she was usually taken for granted.

“Is it really you?”

When had they last met? He tried to conjure what they had been…compatriots, rivals, enemies?

Lien laughed as he used a simpler tone and jumped as all of a sudden arms were flung out and her shoulders caught in his grasp. Well, he knew the goddess within then. The names meant nothing to a girl who had not been schooled further than elementary but to Cosine they meant everything.

The goddess smiled and came forward once more.
"It is I." She said softly, trying to remember who he was. "Though I am sorry, Gianfar. Your face, whilst familiar does not tell me your domain. For you to know me you must spend much time in these holy halls of words."

The cold shock of recognition left him stunned. Names still dripping from his lips, formed but unvoiced, like an old man muttering to himself. It was a moment before he emerged with a shiver.

It was just a feeling to her, not a memory. Of course. Whatever they had been, the present was a clean slate. But what formulas and diagrams had been erased from it? Wouldn't they leave a ghost mark, as erased chalk did, under the clean white writings they tried to make now. It must be either a strong former set of bonds, or dangerous to have affected him so.

"Nono, the apology is mine." He realized he had nearly assaulted her and loosened his grip. "Good gracious...I'm sorry." He must seem like a spittle raving prophet, coming at her like that. "My domain is, I am Knowledge." He had a much longer list of names than she, and not nearly as many as the gods of Love and War. He didn't yet remember his First name, the one she would have known him by.

"I'm afraid that books tend to hold your gifts to men with no credit given, no names. Not this Library," he tapped his temple, "this one. I knew you in myself. It flashed up out of memory like a spear." Perhaps he should not be admitting it, when the memory was still just a fragment.

"Anyway, I haven't been in these particular Holy Halls much until yesterday. Though I will be, till they make sense." Awkward, he jerked an arm towards the door, a marionets motion of gallant gesture to a lady. He had trouble with coordination when his brain got going. "Join me...a coffee?"

Knowledge ...

The word opened up rivers in her memories though they were suffering from a drought. Mere trickles of rememberance. She could hear his kind words, maybe the kind a parent might say to a child. Though it was feint and fading like a ripple.

"I ... I think I must have consulted you many times. I have my own section it seems, for my records."

Lien smiled at his gesture and nodded.
"Coffee sounds good." She said, feeling rather awed to be in the prescence of a god who did not try to use that fact. He reminded her of Echo in his gentle nature.

"Do you need help with your organisation?" She asked as they walked. "Cosine seems to have a talent for it. We have just catalogued Lord Harmodius' treasury."

Good, he hadn’t put her off. The tug of social anxiety loosened, puppet strings slack. He relaxed as they walked, his mind catching up with them in the present. “So you remember me, a little? Few of the gods remember anything of their pasts. Perhaps I should not be surprised. There was no more meticulous record keeper than you were.”

He did not need to consider her offer, “In which light, your help would be blessed.” What was a blessing but a gift from a god? Though the host was technically who he was talking to, the frame entirely mortal still. She was letting the goddess speak; they must be on good terms. He was being rude again. “Both of you,” he amended, but it sounded like a footnote.

“I know all the systems of ordering things that have been created,” if I could remember them, “but I am dreadful at inventing them. Dewey decimal hardly seems adequate for this Great Library.” Sitting over coffee and discussing the organization of the library would be decadent, much easier than physically moving the books. “Lien, would you be willing to stay and do grunt labor after listening to two deities go on about hierarchical tree structures and faceted systems for hours? Name your price.”

A dissonant chord, two notes struck a the same time. On the one hand pleasure, to have someone to work alongside him. The other, that unease again – Lord Harmodius’ Treasury. That would have been a prolonged task. She would have been much in His company, and she didn’t seem disturbed at all.

Lien found she liked this new god. The nicest she had met within the walls of the Pantheon. He was a little like Nergal, only ... not quite as meticulous and particular.
"i would be glad to help, and no price." She shrugged. "There is nothing I have any need for."

Within her host Cosine thought about the library and all the millions of books that resided within its walls. He was right. The Dewy system, which she remembered feintly, was fine for mortal libraries. But ... the library of knowledge and the gods.

"A separate subject cataloging system controlled by a central one maybe?" She suggested as her metholodical brain worked through possibilities.

"Do you have computers here." Lien interjected. "That might help."

“Computers…” Gianfar said slowly, the way a housewife would say “the oven…” realizing it was still on at home. Computers were libraries stored minute in silicon and gold. Connected, they were threads tangling the dubious collective intelligence of the masses into one matted cloth. He had mixed feelings about them. They should have been his angels, messengers and guardians, interface between Knowledge and those who sought. But they had made their debut into the mortal world late in the years of his Fading.
He never learned how to use one.

“Ah…well…they are useful servants. I had been thinking more along the lines of paper and Aoide, but, you are right. They might help. Are you proficient with them?” Of course she was, they spoke her language.

He took them out the nearby front doors and down ash drifted stairs. The main shop neighbored. Shop…one could hardly call it that anymore. The Pantheon, the seat of Destruction. Past obsidian doors into musky air, the scent of Power. He walked a direct path through the irrelevant grandeur to their ultimate destination…the coffee maker. His hands pulled out canisters and poured water on instinct, no need for his brain to intervene.

“A central, basic catalogue that branches into smaller domains…the tree.” That was the image Destruction, or whoever had made the Library, had chosen as decoration. The tree of Knowledge. He could ponder the uncomfortable hints later. “That sounds good. Cross-referencing every book to related subjects would make up for the necessary subjectivity of choosing categories. A computer could do that.　But you know, I haven’t seen any around. Machines don’t like the dust.” He kept the espresso machine meticulously clean, lest it suffer. They were standing in the heart of Entropy. Technology was delicate and succumbed quickly. “Do you know where to get any?”


Lien and Cosine pondered computers, did they know them. Lien knew of them, their uses and capabilities. She did not know, however how to use one properly. Maybe send an e-mail or surf the net. Not a catalogue, that seemed both intimidating and impossible.

Cosine however was rather more optimistic. She had a vague memory of computers, huge machines that pumped out numbers. Then, later, people pumped numbers into them and pictures were created. Codes, pages, programmes that could do almost everything and anything. People became addicted to these small machines, glued to the growing screen.
"If I had one ... I might remember what to do." She said as she made their way back out to the main lounge of the pantheon building.

Where to get one though, that was a bigger conundrum. She did not remember seeing one in their travels ... however ...

your friend. She said withing Lien's head. would she have one?

Lien breathe deeply and looked up to Gianfar.
"I um, I have a friend who is an engineer. She can fix almost anything. She might be able to make us one ... or, if we could find an abandoned, broken one she would be able to fix it. it can't be much different to radios and radars."

“You say that with trepidation.” She had just complained at him for using large words. “You sound worried. Are you hesitant to ask her? It is a brilliant idea.”

Knowing the kind of computer they needed was much simpler than knowing how to use it. “It doesn’t need to be able think fast or multitask…processing speed, yes that was it.” He tapped his fist into the open palm of his other hand. “It only needs memory, and a good constitution. Just like the rest of us, eh? The chances of us finding even even a mediocre reparable computer this close to His Throne are slim, but I have a friend as well.” Counting Revei I have two actually. “He is a dragon. I was going to ask him to help me with the grunt work, but he could go salvaging instead. He could be told what to look for. In the meantime we could be cataloguing and sorting.”

He sipped his coffee and began to feel more hopeful about the entire procedure. In company, it would be, dare he say it, fun. “Do you have any Aoide? An extra pair of hands?”

Lien shook her head and smiled as she sipped her coffee and watched him sift through his thoughts.
"No, not nervous. Just unsure that we could find one. Though, if your dragon friend can help then there should be no problem."

Inside of her Cosine was practically bursting with the thought of being useful and getting to do her favourite thing in the world.

"I have no Aoide." She said softly, "Not yet, I had a crow companion but I have yet to find her ... and this." Lien's hand reached into her pocket and pulled out the charm that Harmodius had given them.



"He said that one day it would be helpful."

The rest wasnt RPed but we assume Gianfar and Lien spent a lot of time hauling books around.

[XiaoRen]

In which Samyaza steals Harmodius' name, heralding the End, and Gianfar learns that lightning doesn't hurt Grigori.

This is WIP & Mostly unformatted. This will change.

Gianfar

Enough of their questions. Usually answering questions gave him energy, like a good double espresso. With quesitons of his own though, he felt that he had no time.Gianfar walked towards the great doors. In panic, it was dignified enough to use the window, but in the hushed trauma after the event he thought they could go back to being civilized. Well, he could. He looked to his side at the eager beast and addressed it, not Yu. "Do you fear the wall, outside?" He also waited for it to open the door. Put that brute strength to purpose.

"then, Nothing? as you name yourself." after outside.

Fragment

Fragment had sat, so still - so patient - while Gianfar answered question after question after question. Endless words built to drown one in sound and thought when action was needed; the beast would have long since left had the Dragon King not held him there with a firm rein. Knowledge moved towards the doors and he rose to his feet and padded slightly behind him until it was his turn to take the lead. The great doors moved as he pressed his bulk against them, muscles and fur rippling from the effort. Once they were outside he shook his shaggy head and responded to the question. "Fear the wall, I do not." Yu was nervous about the wall, but his host felt nothing but a tingle in his nose that said there was something...Other about it.

Gianfar

To fear Void should be instinct. It could be that madness had robbed it of the urge for self preservation. Or perhaps it had less to fear than a normal beast. "Good, because I think we should go have a close look at it."

Fragment

Likely it was some strange mix of both - but leaning more towards madness. He chuckled, a raspy sound. "What would you find, Gianfar - Knowledge?" Loremaster. Scented of ozone and old books.

Gianfar

It called him by name, a step up from Mourning Dove. He was glad it hadn't degenerated to Nugget or Drumstick.

"Of you? I would find what harm it can do you. Can you touch it? You say you walked in Void. Where? And how did you survive it? Was it in the Ashlands? Do you know of the Ashlands?" These were complicated questions, perhaps not put simply enough.

Fragment

Fragment would have called him Lunch had Yu not chastised him to behave appropriately.

No no no -- he knew it as none of those! Fragment shook his head, each set of eyes blinking slowly - blink. blink. blink. "Ashlands?" He worked his massive jaws and moved towards the wall, sitting before it like an expectant cat awaiting it's filled food bowl. "It walked where there was Nothing, not even a name. What speak you about 'Ashlands'?" The beast didn't know what the place may have been called, only that it had been Nothing. InBetween. "Touch, yes." But then, anyone could touch, it was what happened when you did so that determined the rest.

Yu held his 'imaginary' breath while the creature reached out with one massive paw to plunge it into the wall; he was unconcerned and not even looking as he did so.

Gianfar

It's paw! It needed that. He would have chosen a horn tip or a tail. It was looking over at him and sticking its limb into annihilation. "Don't just stick it in..." The caveat was after the fact... But his eyes were wide, and he craned close, his own instincts had always failed when it came to new learning. His nose was inches away from the paw and the dizzy not color, hard to say which was more dangerous.

He would have explained the nature of the experiment before conducting it - what the Ashlands were, what other in betweens he might have come from. But that wasn't half as interesting as what was happening now.

Fragment

Yu was shouting much the same inside of the beast's head - 'Don't just stick it--' - but in typical beast fashion, he'd done just that. For brief seconds there was nothing...and then a cold-burning sensation that caused the beast to yank it's limb back. Or what was left of it. Fragment's brash stupidity had cost him his paw; it was removed, very neatly as though cut by a diamond-laser - but with void rot. Host and Dragon howled with one voice and backed away from the wall, blood starting to seep through the decaying, cut area.

Gianfar"

He reeled back, on his a** in the dust and scrambling away for the second time that hour. The howl was amazing, dual toned and deep like a shakuhachi made of a sequoia bole. The cut was amazing, a perfect vivisection of its joint - and Gianfar took note. Did the beast's physiology follow any sensible patterns, or was it as mad inside as it was out? But as he gathered himself and stood, his expression was not amaze. "Tch...well, it was too much to hope for." The chances of a Dragonking wearing a form that could withstand Void were slim in direct proportion to how much they could use something like that. He ought to get that bleeding stopped, but he wasn't inclined to get any closer. He took off his stole. "Yu, if you calm him, I can bind the stump."

He yelled, hoping Yu would hear him over the howl, and because he was standing 10 yards away. Couldn't be too safe.

Fragment

It took a full two minutes for the Dragon King to get his hulking monstrosity of a host to calm enough for him to be able to even think of having any sort of aid - first or otherwise - done to the raw edge where the creature's paw had once been. 'Pity my host...is so foolhardy...'

The beast whined and bent it's head to lick at the bleeding stump, fur standing on end. Since the gem had been implanted, he'd been able to heal from wounds and injuries -- but it also made his shifting a little more complicated. It would take a good three minutes before the flesh and bone had reformed, before skin with short, soft fur had covered the sinews. He would be able to have a proper paw again, but Fragment would growl at Gianfar if he came too close while he was altering his shape to do so. Wounded beasts never liked to be touched.

The main difference after he'd reformed his paw? Less fluff, but he would have his paw!

Gianfar

Now he had amaze. It was licking a Void wound healed! That was another attribute that would be so convenient that one dared not hope. He did wander close enough to be growled at more than once, out of fascination. Though he would rather Yu thought it was from concern. Each time it snarled he fluttered and jumped back, but his eyes didn't leave the stump. Gruesome bone and gristle jutted and curled out from under its tongue, like a cat rearranging it fur. Wait, that could be it... But as he looked the beast over he couldn't tell if anything was shifting. It was so damn fluffy. At last, when it had finished and his curiosity brought him inside its personal space with no warning growls, he asked "How did you do that?"

Fragment

Oh no, no - healed from bleeding, but not from the Void; he would have those scars always....but, his flesh was such that he could appear to have done so, simply by covering it up and moving the scars elsewhere, internally. After, when Gianfar asked how it had happened, Yu could not quite answer - his host's malleable flesh was still somewhat alien in it's workings; he simply knew that he could shift the flesh with his will.

Rather, the beast could. He could not as of yet control that aspect of their shared body - and more's the pity.

Fragment flexed it's newly-formed paw and watched the razor-claws moving smoothly in and out as he flexed. Good, it was a neat job, that. "How? How does a bird fly? It learns and then does."

Gianfar

The paw was as good as new, and the beast casual about it. He beat down the hopes that were sparking with the wet blanket of good sense. If it could heal Void, Yu would have said something inside. Unless he had a grudge against Arctang. But the beast was insane, might not see the use, maybe...maybe. "Let me ask that differently. What did you just do?" He stood with his stole trailing from one hand in the dust.

Fragment

Gianfar's summation was correct: if he could heal Void wounds, Arctang would have benefited from it. Yu was a Dragon King, not a sadistic beast, regardless of what his host was. "Moved self. Rebuilt what was lost using what remained." Now that the beast was no longer in pain, it wasn't fighting the Dragon's hold and didn't seem likely to take a bite out of his companion.

Gianfar

He nodded, the wet blanket settling about his shoulders. No this is all just a freak show, so far, not a breakthrough. "I had thought it might be that. ah well." The fact that it could shift its form implied another disappointing possibility. "It would be impossible for me to Know where you have been, since you yourself don't know. Unless someone had sent you there, and they knew. But the fact that your form is unstable...do you know, has it always been so, or is that something that came with the Nothing?" An unstable, in between place made unstable, in between things.

Fragment

Gianfar scented of disappointment and spoke in a tone that suggested much the same. Yu had his host settle onto it's backside and sit up like a good dog while they talked. 'Would that it were different, Gianfar.'. He flicked his ears a bit and then let the beast answer - it knew better than anyone. "Always, always could shift - even Before, where there was just the Original. Before the InBetween." When he had been part of Khiarhu. "The Unicorn sent it Between."

Gianfar

So his guess was off, it was a shapechanger. Had been? Was it a copy, a piece of many, a remains? But that didn't matter much to the battle, though he supposed it might matter to the beast and to Yu. His guess had been off, but it said it, said InBetween. "You were banished to the Void?" It tickled his brain, static of things rubbing close. That statement applied somehow, should fit into his understanding of the true Void. But...a unicorn wasn't a god, to send something outside of Creation. "I don't think it could have been the Ashlands. I don't think a Unicorn could send you there. The Ashlands aren't In-Between, they are Out. They are an old place, that I don't know very much about. But, I do know that there are many worlds, this one at the center of them." Now in the sense that a hole was at the center of a whirlpool. "They overlap, and in places they gap. There are empty spaces." He replaced his dirty stole around his neck. He was altogether a different color grey, after all this.

Fragment

Fragment's fur rippled and he shook his shaggy head at the Void question -- he knew where he'd been, and it had been nothing...but that had been a different nothing than this Void Gianfar spoke of. Obviously, as he had travelled so easily through one and lost a piece of himself in the other. "Empty places, between worlds. Nothing and void -- but no, no.. Treasure says no, not your Void. Can't be...." He growled a bit, not a menacing sound but one of frustration. "Unicorn put a hole in our chest, shattered and broken... We turned to the InBetween, banished. Not living-but-alive."

Gianfar

I expect it had good reason to. They aren't very warlike. But it was so like a dragon, such bulk of pride and menace and yet whining over old indignations and wounds. Like a daft, evil brother of Gabriel's. It shouldn't be endearing. He reached up and scritchied it on the heavy forehead between its center eyes, massaging muscle over the thick skull beneath. "That sounds horrible, but not as bad as being in the Ashlands then. At least you are here at all, and Yu can be with you." to devour the fragments of your soul, with us hoping its enough for him to be properly reborn. not much of a congratulations. "It may still be of use if you can travel those in between places. There may be more and more of them as the fabric of the worlds tears. And certainly that you can appear to not take wound, even when you do. The Grigori don't know that. They can be fooled, as surely as they can lie." Perhaps a task would cheer it. Perhaps being ordered around would piss it off. "Are you up to seeing how big this wall is?"

Fragment

The beast rumbled when Gianfar gave it a skritch - touch was yet something it was getting used to in this realm. Touch it had gone for so long without; even Yu - with his (misguided) Dragon's pride - could not begrudge his host the simple pleasure of touch. He was not cruel on purpose. "Treasure will be All, someday. We will be part of Treasure then." Oh, the beast well knew that Yu would take over his body and the bits of his soul that remained; he also knew that his sanity was being pieced together by the King inside him. Clarity came more and more often, after all. 'So you think my host's abilities may yet have merit. Good. We will use whatever we can against our foes, no matter how small.'

Six eyes peered at the Wall, the memory of hurt was still there, but both Dragon and Gianfar wanted to know. "Fly bird, fly. See what is the height, yes?"

Gianfar

"Fly? Oh yes of course, you could manifest wings. I expect its quite high..." he looked up the sheer face of black. It messed with your sense of gravity, like it should be the horizontal plane and you about to fall on your nose into it. "I had been thinking along, or around. We don't know which yet. See that writing there, at the base, I want to know if it repeats, if it peters off though the wall continues, or if it is a single long string of language different from beginning to end. With the hope that it has a beginning and end and she isn't powerful enough to bisect Gaia."

The rumbling opened wider the cracked door of affection. It wanted to eat him, but it liked having its head scratched in just the place Gabriel did. There would have been nothing under its paws, to its sides, no direction in the in between place. With time beginning to stretch out before him, to get back to his study of the language, his heart relaxed like a fist letting go. he extended the petting back as high as he could reach, over the ridge between where his horns merged.

He had never been comfortable discussing the takover of hosts. He had been so ruthless with his own. Easier to let it go. It was a simple, correct acceptance, that the beast had. It could see what most more complicated minds purposefully obscured.

Fragment

Fragment didn't bother looking up, it was still enjoying Gianfar's hand on it's head; it supposed the wall was very high - it was meant to hold them, after all. The Grigori b***h had done a right-smart job of it too...a trick that Yu would have liked to know how to replicate. 'Ground first. Less wasted effort...the shape-changing takes it's toll on my host.' Which was why they had not done much in the beginning....the beast had hoarded energy to heal and to give to the still weakened Dragon King.

Oh, good - oh yes, with a very un-dignified thump of it's tail, the black beast dropped it's head to further encourage the petting. Eating Gianfar was still on his list of things that Might Be Good to Do, but not on his list of things To Do. "Words...always words and stretching along with hidden agendas." Fragment would enjoy the petting while it lasted; eventually Gianfar would tire of it or Yu would. They had Business to attend to.

Gianfar

Gianfar's patience for it was longer than his patience for the questions inside. He let himself enjoy something simple, ignoring the absurdity. Looking left and right to make sure none saw, he sunk both hands into the fluff and got under its chin, behind its ears, and down along its mane. Only when he realized his arms were around its neck, sort of a personal embrace for a Dragon King, did he stop. He expected his front to be coated in black fur, out of mental habit, since Gabriel couldn't come close without coating you in silver stardust and fur. But there was none. It was a mass with a form imposed on it by will. That wasn't fur, but the shape of fur, and as integral as its heart muscles or eyes.

[XiaoRen]

Advisor for a week

His hopes had been idle in his hands, and dreams of white columns and atriums thronging with students wouldn't be realized in this Age. There was no time to build a University. He didn't need to. There was already an edifice, a symbol of himself, a temple built to house him. The Great Library would withstand until the end, and people already knew it, or else came there because it offered shelter when so many other things crumbled. It was a separate plane by necessity to hold so much. In the current anarchy, who was to say it wasn't his?

Phaedra might have, coveting all things for herself, but he had avoided her all during her reign.

He had moved the shelves that stood in a circle around his symbol, The Tree and its Fruit, replacing them with a crescent of benches. Across the inlaid circle from them, he had Gabriel drag one of the large desks. At first he had a highbacked wooden chair, a small throne carved with a dragon's head at the top, found elsewhere in the library. But it had been too uncomfortable, and crushed his wings. So now he had moved it aside and had a green vinyl cushioned office chair with a low back and squeaky wheels. The seat had been worn just right, by whose studious behind he didn't know.

This was his lecture hall. His forum. He lectured there once a day, and people had started coming. They were a straggled bunch, at the library for protection and not for any quest for knowledge. But they listened, and that was worship. He needed it. Caffeine wouldn't be enough to sustain him.

That day's lecture was done, and he had scrolls spread over the desk before him. Some remnants of his flock were asleep on the benches, and Gabriel was asleep at his feet. He himself had not slept since the Throne had fallen. He wouldn't until all this was finished, or Finished in a more capitol judgement.

I may never sleep again.

Over the course of a few days, Sh'khin debated what he needed to do in preparation for his own golden week. He had heard the crash of yet another window, leading to the week of War, and an unsettling anger had risen up inside of him. If there was any time to declare war, it would be now. But warring with who? The unseen Grigori that he had only heard about, but had never seen? How does one go to war with creatures so powerful?

For answers, and a hopeful revelation, he had taken Phaedra's advice and had gone to the Library, searching for Knowledge. He had only ever visited the place once before, when Iris was still a host, instead of a parasite, and the strong scent of books wafted into his nose as he opened the doors and entered a realm of information.

As he made is way toward the back of the Great Library, his eyes scanned the shelves, the seats, the aisles. Here and there, mortals slept, looking exhausted. Did Gianfar hold court in the Library?

He approached the desk, where a silver-haired man with glasses sat, huddled over scrolls which likely contained important information. He then noticed the man's wings, and at that moment, he knew.

"Knowledge," he said, giving the god a bow of the head. "I am Sh'khin, Plague. I come to ask for your assistance."

Gianfar looked up, and his eyes focussed, stars converging from long distances to twin points once more. The introduction had been what jarred him from his papers, so he was spared wondering what misfortunes had pocked and bubbled skin the color of week old battlefield corpses. Not unlike descriptions he had just been reading - all the papers scattered before him were battle accounts, anything with tales of old and terrible weapons. Theoretically he searched for hints of godforged tools. But the sterilized accounts of troop deployment without adequate supplies, the death lists, the maps fascinated him.

"Sh'kin, it's a pleasure. Welcome to my University, such as it is." He stood and offered his hand. "I am always awaiting those who seek, and endeavor to be easily found. Call me Gianfar." He showed no loathing to touch, no hesitance to look. "Heh, funny, I was just reading about you."

Sh'khin glanced at the scrolls Gianfar had been reading and studying, looking for clues of what Knowledge sought. But before he could make anything of it, the god had risen, extending a hand. "It is a pleasure to meet you Gianfar. I have heard about you a few of times since my rebirth, but I have not found the time to seek you out until now. I apologize for such a late introduction," he said, smiling and shaking the god's hand, He noticed that like most of the others, Gianfar did not hesitate in his welcome, even in Sh'khin's state of affairs. Soon he would forget that he even looked strange to others...

"Eddard, host of Oath, has spoken most favorably of you and Phaedra, Lady Greed, suggested I come to you for information. Her golden week is now over, and I feel my own time is drawing near. I wanted to come to you to see how I could be of assistance during my ascention. Phaedra told me that I will gain enormous power, and though I could use it for my own devices, I feel there are more important things to attend to. The End is near -- I can feel it, and the days are counting down."

He paused, wondering what Gianfar had been reading about him. "Oh? Has it been an interesting read?" he asked, chuckling. "I barely remember my previous works. Were they fantastic?"

"Some of the most powerful weapons ever made were yours." He picked up a metal binder with hand written pages each in a plastic sheath. "Clostridium Botulinum, long found in anaerobic environments, was given a perfect aerobic delivery system on the world Vexale. A symbiotic synthetic bacteria that coated every Botulinum spore in a casing that was a byproduct of its own processes. The Botulinum was hardier than anyone expected, able to reproduce in an aerobic environment. Airborn, waterborn, it spread far beyond what its creators had intended. They had not yet developed off world travel. All of them..." He took a deep breath. "But then, our collaborations had a way of getting out of hand." He set the notebook aside and drug his chair around, wheels squeaking, to offer it to Sh'kin.

"I'm sorry. I've been developing morbid fascinations over the past week. Please, have a seat." He leaned back against the desk, palms spread to either side of himself, and drummed his fingers. "Your week of ascension..." He was silent for a while, thinking.

"Well you might be able to help with my current work...I am looking for clues to the whearabouts of five geat Artifact Weapons from the old war between the Pantheon and the Grigori. Have you heard anything about that?"

Sh'khin took a seat in the chair, rolling around to face Gianfar, a smile on his face. "It is reassuring to know that in the past I had such power," he said, grinning from ear to ear as if he were a five-year-old who had just done something to please his mother. "Though the outcome sounds tragic, the weapon itself is ingenious. Perhaps in this life, we can work with one another again." Aah, it made so much sense! Knowledge would have been the perfect partner in 'crime' ... "That is, if the End can be stopped."

"It is the week of War and morbidity -- I myself have been trying to prepare for what is coming, but I am having quite a time of it." He became quiet, allowing Gianfar time to think, and when the god spoke again, he was glad to have heard at least -some- of what Knowledge imparted upon him.

"Phaedra jogged my memory about our war with the Grigori. Bits and pieces of memories flash through my mind at times, so I admit I do not remember much of my previous incarnation, save for a couple of our brothers and sisters. But it sounds as if finding these artifacts would be of extraordinary importance. If they really could be used to wound the creatures of the Void, then they would most assuredly come in handy," he nodded, an excitement building inside him. He might actually be able to help!

"Do you know of their whereabouts?" he asked, remembering that Phaedra had had the Sight upon her ascention and had been able to locate the Manacles. "Lady Greed has told me what to expect upon sitting on the throne, and I should be able to help you find them when the time comes."

What a pleasant surprise, that Plague would come to him! He spoke of working together during his week of power. Why, that was like being asked to be an advisor to the Throne. If it were the week of Pride he would have fallen prey in a second. His wings perked, and he could not bring dissapointment to his voice as he said,“I have found nothing in these texts, only weapons of greatness against mortals, against gods. I am ashamed to say that I may know less than you. You spoke to Phaedra on her throne? I avoided her all throughout her reign. I was establishing this space as my own, and thought she might covet it. I don’t know what powers ascension brings.” He leaned over the other god, so childlike with his eager grin. Shk’in was under the microscope now. “You could tell me…” By that he meant do.

“And you know, a thought occurs to me, speaking of past collaborations. I wonder if we could make something together, you and I, while you are Great. What is plague but the hardiest of life, colonies, minute worlds of multitudes that feed on the body as their universe? Could we use some property of Gaia or Byrne, who we have here, to make a bioweapon, or an innoculation to strengthen the gods against Void wounds?” The drumming of his fingers quickened, like a heartbeat.

Sh'khin took note of Gianfar's enthusiasm, which further spurred the giddy smile that had come across his face.

"Ah, well perhaps there are other texts to glean information from," he said. "Do you know anything about these weapons? Types? Names?" He wanted to learn as much as possible from the scholarly god, in case he needed to impart the information upon others later down the line.

"Phaedra... She is quite sly, and I think it was probably not a bad idea to remain far from her during her week -- at least in your case. She is quite covetous, and though I am not sure if she has much interest in ancient tomes, she probably would have attempted to take this place from you just because she could. She is one to prove a point." He paused, thinking about his sister, who he had fairly good relations with, considering. "I must say though, she is not entirely evil. I have grown to like her quite a bit, and find I can trust her. Though she is one of Destruction's Seven, so perhaps we have that bond in common..."

Recalling his conversation with Lady Greed as she sat on the throne, Sh'khin told Gianfar about the powers that came with ascention. "Well, she has told me that her own powers were massively increased -- to the point of her being truly like herself again -- a fully ascended goddess. She had the ability to See All and Hear All if focused on it. She also had the power to call people and gods to her on a whim." He paused, trying to remember if there was anything else important. "And using the Seeing, she was able to locate the Manacles -- to bind the chrysalis. I believe she will seek them out, though I am not sure if she has gone herself, or if she has sent someone to search for them."

Once he was done recalling his conversation with Phaedra, he listened intently as Gianfar suggested the collaboration, his eyes glistening with excitement. Would he actually be able to use his own powers to help? That would be most excellent!

Why didn't I come here sooner? he couldn't help but ask, berating himself for not seeking out Knowledge earlier. I should have known better...

"Do you think that would really work?" he asked anxiously. "My, that is something I never would have thought of! Gianfar, you are brilliant!" He grinned from ear to ear, banging a hand on the desktop in enthusiasm. "Do you think if we were able to innoculate the gods against the Void that it would also be possible to damage creatures of the Void with a similar method? Do you know what is required to damage the Grigori?" He had noticed that Knowledge had mentioned Gaia and Byrne, who he had only heard of in passing, and had never met. Did they have powers that made them capable of resisting damage from the Void?

Destruction’s seven…tails. Each its own dragon, slithering up his robes, constricting, probing tips soon thick as wrists. Gianfar blanched from parchment to copier paper, fingers stilling on the desk. He drew his legs together and shivered in the warm, dry air. (Though beside Sh’kihn could it really be said he looked sick?) Sh’khin’s voice was muffled through cotton and heartbeat, that whole room had been a heartbeat pumping, slow, thick…


The bang of a palm on the desk and he lifted his head with a little gasp. "…what is required to damage the Grigori?" He answered quickly, before Shkhin could say anything about it. Hopefully he hadn’t even noticed.

“Any deific weapon or power can do damage, if it has strength. But in wounding takes wound, because the magic and lifeblood of the Grigori is Void. It rots what it touches. Anyway, the Grigori can regenerate. It would take a host of sacrificial gods attacking more quickly than a Grigori could heal to be effective, like a swarm of apis aerana japonica mobbing a hornet.”

He reviewed Shkhin’s words in his mind, going over what he had missed during his…what, flashback? How embarrassing. I hasn’t happened in front of someone before. Two words. Like a switch. Please don’t let him ask. I haven’t even told Revei. But he could speak without paying attention, he had been over this.

“Before I sound too hopeless, there is this - aligned to Void, Creation wounds them. So do the powers of those close to Creation: Gaia, Rebirth, Animal, Plant. The four Artifact Weapons belong to these spheres - Aristogeiton’s Sword because it was a gift forged for him, one assumes by the Throne. Only those four will withstand. Only they can…Manacles?” His mental playback interrupted him. “Do you mean Byrne’s Jesses? That would be fantastic. Aristogeiton’s sword will likely be found, so many are searching for its owner. That only leaves the Glaive and Shears. Those four weapons, those five influences alone can truly wound the Grigori, as far as I know.”

His voice dropped to a whisper, but fervent. Lecture became oration, information - inspiration. “But, I only know of weapons made, not those unconceived. How we pin our hopes on these great Artifacts. And yet, every artifact was once crafted by some god’s hand. Why not ours?"

He took a deep breath, preparing to continue. The compliment registered last, breathe escaped in a panicked huff. "Brilliant?" His wings and hands fluttered at Shkhin, "Hardly impressive. No more than you being virulent."

In his excitement, Sh'khin noticed little of Gianfar's discomfort, and though he did see the god jump a bit, he assumed it was the surprise of the thump that had caused it.

"Any deific weapon or power?" he asked, repeating what he had heard. "I would assume that those of us who are not yet full deities do not have powers strong enough to damage them, right? And if the Void rots what it touches, would the ancient weapons also crumble into the Void as well? I had hoped they were perhaps built with an uncanny strength against the Void -- enough to at least attack a Grigori several times... Hmmm," he pondered, imagining a scene where his fellow godlings went up against the Grigori, each losing their life in a struggle they were not meant to win.

"How quickly can they heal?" he asked, wondering if even Gianfar knew the answer. "Perhaps there is a way to keep their wounds fresh -- a way to disable their regeneration capabilities -- perhaps a bioweapon could serve that purpose as well..."

As he took in the possibility of using Creation's closest powers to defeat the Grigori, he listened as Gianfar listed the ancient weapons and those who had held them. "I have heard that several groups are searching for the pieces of the Consort, and I do hope they return with them soon. That would be one more piece of the puzzle set into place."

He paused. Jesses? "I am not sure if the Manacles and the Jesses of which you speak are one and the same. Phaedra only called them "Manacles"... But if what she seeks truly belong to Byrne, that would be one less weapon to find," he nodded. "Who do the Glaive and Shears belong to?"

"Yes, you are right to think of moving from the past and creating something new. We should not depend on finding them, I agree. There is hope within the Pantheon still, and if we can create something as powerful as the original artifact weapons, that would be quite a marvelous feat."

He chuckled. "I suppose you are right. It is in your nature to be brilliant all of the time. Next time I'll refrain from so much praise," he added, smiling at the silver-haired god.


It looks like a sperm on Gabriel’s a**, but its actually the constellation Draco. He has soft silver fur, and is the size of a pony.

Gabriel startled awake with the enthused bang of a palm on the desk he slept under. He didn’t really fit, and the desk shook again as his head hit it. Flattening, he peeked under the crack between the front of the desk and the floor. Gianfar’s bare feet were right there, heels by his nose. The wheels of Gianfar’s throne were close, and other feet propped on the base of it. The person must have walked barefoot through the dust, for their skin to bubble with sores like that.

Haunches first he scooted out, then stretched and yawned coming around. Horror left his beak open – the person was that way from head to toe. Not covered in sores, but sparingly and subtly marked, white and black pustules draped like a corsage, red dots scattered like body glitter. Were those smallpox? At a glance, the coloring was attractive on the handsome man (beautiful woman?), but he/she should obviously be dead of a host of things. Gabriel’s back rose a ridge of hackles. He spotted the delicate flywings at the person…no, deity’s back.

“If there are illnesses even a god can catch,” why shouldn’t there be, everything else was going to hell, “Even if Gianfar would know their cure, you shouldn’t come here to ask. He is fragile, he will catch something.” Even a young dragon, in this life, and new to speech, he had mastered a chastising tone.


“The way you say it hardly sounds like refraining..." Is Plague truly so guileless? So...cute? He changed the subject, blushing. "I wonder if Phaedra knows whether the Manacles and the Jesses are one. I would rather scry it myself than ask her…” That sort of woman put him dreadfully off balance, made him feel frumpy, inevitably got angry with him for not being attracted. Even with her descended, he wasn’t anxious to meet.

“Harmodius’s Glaive, Gaia’s Shears.” He answered, then asked. “Do you know when you will Ascend? I know that the influence changes by the week, with the trumpet blast. But I haven’t looked for a schedule.” Someone must know the nature and number of the weeks before the End, but he hadn’t thought it pertinent. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. During the week of Lust he had been too preoccupied with Revei, and during the week of Sloth too lazy to do aught but lay tangled with him, and during the next week...and so on.

Then Gabriel emerged, cutely yawning, from behind the desk…and puffed up like seeding dandilion.

As Gianfar's desk shook in front of him, Sh'khin looked at it quizzically, wondering if Gianfar had a strange leg twitch he hadn't noticed. But as the dragon-like creature emerged from beneath the desk, beak wide and gawking, he turned to face him. And before he could tell Gianfar just how cute the dragon was, it had begun its most appropriate lecture.

Taken slightly aback, Sh'khin sat back in his chair, reclining slightly. "I did not expect you to speak, but you do it so well," he praised the dragon, rolling himself a bit further away from the desk as if to create much-needed space between himself and the dragon's master. "I apologize if I have come too close to you, Gianfar -- But as of yet, I have not made any of the gods I have met ill, and have only fevered one mortal, which was a conscious choice. I am still only a sliver of my former self, incapable of much more than making someone a bit warm and calling a few of my totem animals." He chuckled softly. "But who knows what will happen once I ascend. For now though, I believe you are safe from harm, even in a fragile state." He turned back to the dragon. "I did not mean to offend. You serve your lord well. It is good to keep his best interests at heart. May I ask your name?"

This time, Sh'khin noticed the fluster and blush on Gianfar's face, and he didn't quite know what to make of it. In a way, it made him quite adorable, and Sh'khin's grin remained. "You must learn to take compliments my friend, as long as they are freely given and true."

He noticed the quick change of subject, not minding that Knowledge seemed to be feeling a tiny bit awkward. He said nothing though, moving back onto the subject of Greed and her knowledge of the Manacles. "I am not sure if she knows, to be honest. When I visited with her, I had no knowledge of the ancient weapons. Had I known, I most certainly would have asked about it. But if you can scry the answer, you could avoid confrontation, that is true."

"I do not know when my ascention will occur, but I feel it is on the horizon. I have not taken much note of the order of things, if there is a significance at all, but it is now the week of War, and with the dead piling in the streets, pestilence and plague are sure to follow. Perhaps it will be next week," he said, looking down at his bruised hands thoughtfully. He had not thought about his ascention until that moment, not realizing that it would come sooner than later. "It would be sensible to think that it would be within a few weeks at least."

Gianfar cleared his throat before a laugh escaped. Gabriel took himself very seriously, and he was being sweet. “Fragile?” to the dragon. “Am I now?” He walked over to Sh’khin before Gabriel could interpose himself. “This is Sh’khin, the god of Plague. I expect he controls who he makes ill.” He turned to Sh’khin. So earnest, he had rolled the chair away and explained himself like a truant student. Gianfar hoped that the seeming was true and the younger god wasn’t offended. A cunning god might act so innocent, then take retribution after they ascended.

Gabriel grumbled to himself, being corrected. Gianfar said Sh’khin could choose, but he didn’t say he was in no danger. Still, Sh’khin had complimented him…that went a long way with dragons. Speech had been hard to manage, and Gianfar never said anything about it.

He shook himself to smooth his fur, shedding stardust, then stepped out of the cloud he had made. He bowed his head to one side, tucking beak to chest, “I am Gabriel. Forgive my mistake. I should have recognized. Only a god could wear so many of your jewels and live, but only you could wear them handsomely,” handsome - Gianfar had used “he”.

What, from protective to flirtatious so quickly? The dragon was so much spunkier young. “Indeed, compliment his accent and you may have a dragon for your Throne in the style of our late Lord when you ascend. It matters less when that is, that we work quickly once you do. There are not many more gods reborn who will ascend. The Artifacts should be found, as they are a certainty. The Manacles…no, the Manacles are not the same as the Jesses, so they might still suffer the rot of Void. I will try to scry for you what is Known of the others. I am wasting my time in these books. I should be looking within myself.”

Sh'khin was definitely amused by the dragon's reaction to him, but what Gianfar had explained to him was true. He held sway over his own powers, and wasn't inherently infectious. He just embodied Plague, and merely looked as if he could spread disease easily.

Sh'khin nodded gracefully as the dragon bowed his head. "It is a pleasure to meet you Gabriel. And I thank you for your compliment. Few take my looks to be handsome, that much is true," he chuckled. "But I agree that there are few who could wear this visage as well as I can." He grinned, knowing it was the truth. Who else could look so good with such mottled skin and bloodshot eyes?

He turned to Gianfar. "I would appreciate Gabriel's presence by the throne if he so decided to join me," he said. "But I do not really deserve to sit in His place. It is only for the betterment of the world that I shall do so. I have a desire to accomplish much during my week."

And thinking of the weapons, his eyes lit up again. "Do you think you could locate them? If I knew where to find them, more or less, I could search them out and send groups to retrieve them. Phaedra told me about the Seeing, and I believe if I knew an approximate location, they could be easily found."

And then Gianfar told him about the ancient weapons with successful rolls to remember the Shears, Glaive, and Jesses, but fails on the Sword. This wasn’t RPed out.

[XiaoRen]

Wierd Science

He had risen from the throne very little over the course of his week, but now, prepared, Sh'khin knew what he needed to do next. Planning could only get him so far, and now, he needed to put the plan into action. Since Gianfar had given him the fantastic idea of creating a vaccine for the gods, Sh'khin had not only planned for that, but had taken the concept one step further to also create a bioweapon of sorts that he hoped would damage the Grigori, or at least affect their healing capabilities.

So now he was on a search for those who could assist him. His first stop would be the Library, where he knew he would find Knowledge, who would likely play an integral part. After that, he would pay a visit to Science, who he had heard now existed once again. Surely she would have a laboratory where they could work, but he knew not where to find her...

A plume of smoke curled up from the hills above the city, marking Science's compound for all the world to see. The dead had to be disposed of some way, after all, and the compound's state of the art ventilation system kept the smoke out the buildings. Deep below the impromptu pyre Dagny was hunched over a microscope, carefully splicing together recalcitrant DNA. She'd told her erstwhile host once she'd make him a tribute, and she was nothing if not a goddess of her word.

As the Week of War faded, so did Gianfar's obsession with the Ancient Weapons. He had told Shkhin what he knew, so that Shkhin could Look and Listen for them when the time came. It had been the Age of Destruction for so long, he realized all his research until now was hindsight. Trying to gather the shattered pieces of the history they had lost, patching time's manuscript, hoping some scrap would hold a word of hope. Wasn't that what this whole search for Aristogeiton the others were on was about?

The only time he lifted his head was when he thought of Revei. That should teach him, that the best thing to have happened to him in this life had been without precedent. If the world was to be saved, they had to become Creators. Theirs was no use to them now. He could not wait to begin his work with Shkhin. Still, there was research to be done. He gathered all the books that had any mention of Gaia, Byrne, Harmodius, and the Void and piled them around his desk. But he couldn't shake the feeling he should be looking forward, not nose down to these rotting texts.

Speaking of rotting, there was a horrible smell. Sometimes thick black smoke drifted in on the stale air when someone opened the University doors. It swirled like oil on water, drifting at nose height through the aisles. Someone must have a kiln of bodies. Only fat, skin, and hair could make smoke like that.

Leaving the throne room, Sh'khin headed for the Library, intent on finding Gianfar and hoping he could help locate Science. When he arrived, he entered straightaway, heading for the desk that he had sat at only a week before.

Finding the god gathering up his books, he smiled. "Gianfar." He bowed slightly in reverence, showing respect for the elder god. "I have returned to kidnap you," he chuckled jokingly, a wry grin on the pockmarked and purple-spotted face that seemed to have been ravished since the last time they'd met. His sclera were dark now, though the irises remained violet, a testament to the hemorrhages that had occurred inside his body upon his ascention.

"It's time to start work." His voice was serious as he said it. "I think we should find Science. She should be a good addition to our team, don't you agree? Perhaps she has knowledge of weapon-making. But I do not know where to find her..."

Gianfar laughed, "I've never been kidnapped before. I am lucky the culprit is patient enough to let me gather my books." He had been expecting to be summoned to the Throne. But Sh'khin had gone out of his way to come here? It couldn't be an act then. There was no reason for him to cater his moods to anyone during his own Week. Plague was a pleasant fellow.

He stacked the books into a chest he had found, along with his espresso machine that no one seemed to have missed from the main shop. Gabriel could carry it.

"I can't tell you how excited I am about this. I can't remember the last time I made anything. I've been gathering what I can, anything that mentions the powers in question. Science?" He felt a small p***k that Sh'khin was looking further for help. Collaborating with Shkhin was using his Knowledge and Sh'khin's abilities, he would naturally have been the project leader. Now... He and Science had neighboring territories, as it were. Neighbors had to be careful to maintain peace. It was so easy to step on each other's toes. Step on each other's pride you mean, old man. Don't get fussy just because you haven't had to share your pedestal in this life.

"She is a wise choice for a collaboration. Annnddd...." he tilted his head and wrinkled his brow. "She is here, in the city. She has her own lab even! Oh, that is where that dreadful smell has been coming from. Gabriel!" He called into the shadows of the aisles "Are you ready? Bring the incense would you?"

Plague chuckled. "Oh, please take your time," he said, appreciating Gianfar's joke. "I know how important your books are to you, and we may need them, so there's no use carting you off without them."

And as he watched him stack his books into a chest, he saw the espresso machine being packed as well. "Good choice bringing that. I assume this is going to take some time, and I'm sure we all would be able to use a litle pick-me-up at some point."

Sh'khin echoed Gianfar's enthusiasm for the project. He too had felt idle since his rebirth, and now, he had a purpose, a plan. And it was even a plan that might benefit them all, if it were successful. He hoped what research he had done would be beneficial, but he knew that both Knowledge and Science were probably better prepared for such things. He had a specialized knowledge, while they had vast amounts of general knowledge. He was there to provide DNA, at the very least.

"I've been feeling a bit giddy about it myself," he agreed, grinning again, as he was wont to do around Gianfar -- for some strange reason. The pair seemed to have hit it off, and Sh'khin found he was rather comfortable around the friendly god. "I might actually do something productive and helpful, rather than destroying things around me for once. Creation is a wonderful thing sometimes."

He was also pleased that Gianfar had located Science so quickly. He hadn't known if Gianfar would be capable of finding her, but he was the god of Knowledge after all. Why would he expect anything less?

"Yes, I thought she might be a helpful member of the team. I'm glad to hear that she's close, and her having a lab is a godsend." He chuckled at his pun lamely, not able to contain the laugh. He waited for Gianfar to gather up his things, and then looked toward the door. "Do you need me to carry something? We should be on our way I think. The sooner we can get there, the better."

"I'm packed and ready to go," Gianfar said after Gabriel had dropped some bundles of incense, gifts from those who attended his lectures, into the chest. He buckled the leather straps. It looked like something pirate's would bury. He had been going to have Gabriel drag it, but if Shkhin was offering. "Help me carry this then would you?" He rolled up his long sleeves and grasped the handle on one side. Gabriel squinted amused. What, you think I can't carry something with help? Gianfar huffed, and waited for Shkhin to help. When he did, the little god was braced, wings stiff with effort, thin forearms showing what muscle they had built up.

Gabriel got the doors. Outside the air was heavy, like before a storm. It was always that way. But it meant that the plume of oily dark smoke in the city's heart was plain from the Pantheon hill. It lifted into a wierdly green lit clouds and merged with the bulbous underbelly of sky. "That's it down there, that brick stack with the thick smoke coming from it." He began shuffling down the main road.

"I can't work without my coffee. Things will come to a sad end when the store of beans is gone. I wonder if Science has a water filter?" He managed between huffs. But the scene didn't lend itself to pleasant talk.

There were people huddled and moaning in the alleys. Many buildings were abandoned, some obvious casualties of the previous week, windows broken or burned out. But others were pristine...as much as anything was. They had Xs on the windows and doors in whatever color paint had been available.

A blue hand paused in the act of injecting DNA into an embryo, Science's short antennae twitching in an effort to pin point where the new odd feeling was coming from. She frowned, finishing with the insertion before setting her work aside and contacting one of her paid goons on the intercom. From there she left the lab for the elevator and the underground for the public buildings. The besuited man met her there, following her to the main doors and out into the jarring sunlight. He coughed as the smoke snaked into his lungs, but Dagny simply took a deep breath. She loved the smell of death in the morning.

"There, in the city." she said to her servant, pointing to the faceless, tired mass of humans below them. "There are others. ...friends, perhaps. Two, both odd looking and out of place. Take a car and bring them back here. Whether they want to come or not."

As she returned to the building to get herself ready for this meeting, her human went to the parking lot and drove a large, black SUV out and down the hills to his quarry. She wanted to know what other gods were here, and why they had come. Maybe they'd even be fun.

Sh'khin grabbed the handle across from Gianfar, lifting the ancient-seeming chest with more ease than the other god. Though it was heavy, it wasn't too terribly cumbersome, and Sh'khin walked alongside him out into the world as Gabriel held the door open for them.

The air, full of smoke, reeked of death and disease, and there were bodies laid alongside the road that looked as if they had dropped dead while walking. Many were marked with the pox that Sh'khin's himself had developed as a result of his ascention. Others were bleeding out, choking and sputtering in death throes. Sh'khin looked at them, some he made direct eye contact with briefly before looking away again. His domain was strong... very strong. He had not realized just how much his week of ascention had effected the world around him. The throne room had not seen many visitors, but mortals had been especially afraid to go near the place. The part of him that revered his host twitched slightly. In this week, he should be proud of his work, not listening to the mortal conscience that had stayed with him.

"Ah, the smell of Plague is strong today," he managed a small smile. "I can't help but be pleased with the way this week has gone."

He looked to the smokestack, nodding. "Well, it's not too far. This is getting heavier as we walk though, I swear. I might need a cup of your coffee by the time we get there."

After ten more minutes, they had made it about halfway through town when Sh'khin saw a dark vehicle heading toward them, from the road that led up into the hills from the city. "I wonder who that could be? I haven't seen a car in a while now..." He looked to Gianfar, wondering if he recognized the SUV.

It wasn't out of place to see something shiny and black in a setting where much that was once soft sandy colors had been charred and melted that way. Like some innocent native of a land without technology he wondered at its shape for a moment - a giant beetle gliding up the slope. Then Shkhin's words made him feel idiotic. "I've seen vehicles but nothing like that condition. Maybe some follower of Science's blessed with working technology." He had paused in their walking. It was natural for a car to drive up the main street, but it had a purpose to it. He could just see the head behind the glass scanning left and right. "They're looking for something." It made him want to leave the main street and let it pass, a black SUV was so classically sinister.

On the other hand, walking with Sh'khin was as good as having Harmodius at his side. It was silly to feel unsettled, even when the vehicle spotted them and picked up speed. "For us it would seem." He set down the trunk with an "oof". "If we're getting a ride, lets just wait."

And he did, till the vehicle pulled up to them and the door opened.

Two men stepped out of the dark interior of the car, anonymous and menacing in their dark suits and sunglasses. They picked up the large trunk and loaded it into the trunk, while a third man rolled down the front passenger window and motioned them into the backseats.

"Ms. Dagny would like to see you." The two loaders explained, looming behind the travelers until they climbed into the black leather interior. They had to scoot, so the men could follow them in, pulling the doors closed behind them as the SUV sped off through the streets and back home. The windows were deeply tinted, but all the passengers could still see what they passed outside. The door handles, when tugged at, wouldn't open.

Sh'khin set the trunk down with Gianfar, inspecting the shiny black vehicle as it pulled up next to them. The men inside looked somewhat intimidating, as if they were hired as bodyguards for Science. "Looks like we will be getting a ride," he said straightfaced as he watched the men lift the trunk into the trunk of the car. "Who wants to haul that heavy thing all the way up there anyway?" he chuckled slightly to break the awkward silence, and then caught a name as one of them spoke.

"Dagny? Well, I suppose we can't say no to such a request, can we Gianfar? I have a feeling she is the one we've been looking for anyway." He climbed into the back seat next to Knowledge, feeling a bit scrunched as the two large men piled in after them. As they headed toward the hills, Sh'khin watched as dull scenery went by.

In no time, they had arrived at the top of the hill, where the smokestack had risen from. This must be her lab, Sh'khin thought as he waited for the men to open the car door to let them out. I wonder what she will be like?

The loading procedure repeated in reverse, everyone piled out of the car and the men in suits fetched the trunk and carried it between them. The servant who had been waiting in the front passenger seat lead the way to the sleek, shining building, while the anonymous driver took the vehicle out of sight. Although still and somewhat empty the public face of the labs was still impressive; a silvery clash of modern and post WWII designs that spoke of holding cutting edge knowledge for the right price. The large doors slid open with nary a sound, leaving only the clack of a woman's high heels on granite tile to greet them.

Science was an exercise in contrasts: dressed to the nines in a tight, curve-hugging green and white suit dress, seamed stockings, and matching saddle shoe pumps - all under a long white lab coat with rubber gloves sticking out of the pockets. Her blue skin glowed green in the light, the visual trick lessening when she held out a hand in greeting. "Welcome gentlemen. I am Dagny, goddess of Science. Whatever brings you to my little nest in the hills?"

As he exited the vehicle and came to stand just outside of it, he looked up to see the building that housed the labs of Science. They were perfectly suited for the task, grandiose and modern, yet at the same time, he could see influences pulled from an older era, when the dawn of Science had enlightened the mortal world.

His eyes turned to the neon figure standing before them, and he had to resist staring at her. She was definitely the Lady Science, judging from her somewhat scandalous, yet utterly science-geek outfit. The rubber gloves and lab coat were perfect touches to the suit dress and stockings, which seemed ripped from an earlier age, just as the architecture from the labs had been. The shocking pink hair reminded him of a dye -- though he could not recall which, and the green hue that radiated from her blue skin was a perfect touch. She looked almost hazardous -- intimidating.

Sh'khin gave Dagny a slight bow, as he was wont to do with his fellow gods. "I am Sh'khin, the Contagion," he said, waisting no time shaking her hand. "I love what you've done with the place. Very retro-modern." He smiled. "Ah, we are looking for your assistance to create a weapon -- a bioweapon. And also, a vaccine. I myself only have limited knowledge of such things, and as Science, I thought you would be the best person to come to for advice and assistance." He put one arm around Gianfar's shoulders casually. "And I have brought Knowledge with me. I thought we could all work well together."

[XiaoRen]

cont...

Gabriel shed so much silver dust on the matte black interior of the SUV that Gianfar was going to apologize as soon as he met Science. Ms Dagny they called her. The men who drove them glowered, but he expected they didn't have many other expressions. Anyway, they were servants, lower than Aoide, he wasn't worried about what they thought...if they did. It made him wonder, that Science had made her servants like machines, unable to think for themselves.

The building was an aesthetic mix of the never realized 1950's futuristic idealism and Unit 731. If the picture he was forming in his mind of Ms Dagny made him uncomfortable, it was nothing in comparison to meeting her face to face. Sexuality laced up tight and pouring out over the top, she dressed business for pleasure. With her bright colors and scalpel cut precision she could hardly be more different from the frumpy, soft god with loose robes and unkempt silver hair. She smiled and he frowned, but he still managed to look more friendly - at least, more like someone safe to be friends with.

The arm suddenly around his shoulders made him startle. He forgot to apologize about the seats. "Ms Dagny, I am Gianfar." he said after Shkhin's frank introduction, not offering his hand. "Thankyou for the ride, I think. I am curious though, how you knew we were coming?" Images of cameras hidden all around the Pantheon came to mind. Something about her encouraged paranoia. Gabriel was pressed close to his leg.

You think we will work well together? He could not help looking at the sweet, pox faced god beside him with open uncertainty. Guileless.

"In this, his week of Ascension, Shkhin should be able to make and succor new diseases the likes of which have not been seen in any Age. You and I, I hope, could direct that power to make something specific." He followed Shkhin's example of frankness, hoping it wouldn't bring them to grief. "Are you aware of what has happened to the Crown? Do you know of the Grigori?"

She raised an eyebrow as she took back her unshaken hand, any insult forgotten at the words bioweapon and diseases.

"Dare I ask what such lovely little terrors might be needed for?" She asked with a laugh, clearly not adverse to such work. "And I'm sure I could make them; the real question is could we three come to a workable agreement?"

She liked the green one, Sh'khin, all oozing and death and decay. Very put together, in a Fourth Horseman sort of way. The pale one was far too stuffy for her tastes, but being civil couldn't hurt if in the end she got something out of him. And if he startled at an arm around the shoulders, he was sure to be entertaining to tease. The one who did not speak was to be ignored.

"No I don't." She answered Gianfar with a careless air, turning and leading the way to large chrome doors set in the wall. A swipe of a card opened them, and revealed an elevator car hidden inside. "Although presumably they have something to do with all of my researchers dying, my host going insane, and your little party appearing on my door step? Come along, to work we must descend."

"I would think we could come to some agreement," he said to Dagny, chuckling as she called his creations 'terrors.' "I suppose you don't work for free, do you?" It was a joke, but he couldn't help but wonder what Science wanted in return for her services. Gianfar had yet to mention any kind of pay -- he seemed to be helping because he wanted to, not because he needed money, or any other kind of payment. They were trying to save the world after all. Who needed to be paid for such a thing?

As he followed Dagny into the elevator that likely descended into the depths of her labs, he decided to make quick work of the story of Samyaza and Harmodius' fall. She needed to know after all, but he was uncertain just how much she might have cared. Living up here, away from the Pantheon, it was probably difficult to discern what was happening in the world around her. If she was focused on her research, she probably took little notice.

"Yes, I'm fairly certain all of those things were caused by the arrival of Gehenna," he started, explaining the death and craze that she had described in her researchers and host. "I do not know how much you remember about the past, but the gods once fought with the Grigori, a race of void-creatures who want nothing more than to see us perish. They were given a homeworld, the Ashlands, and for many years, lived there without returning. Not long ago, peace between the gods and the Grigori was shattered when their queen returned to this world -- to the Pantheon. In the short time she was here, she wrapped our Lord, Harmodius in a chrysalis of sorts, and fought the gods who attempted to protect him. That b***h of a queen escaped," he spat infuriatingly, annoyed just thinking about it. "... and left several gods with void-rot, along with the chrysalis of Harmodius, which is Gehenna -- the End. If we do not find a way to stop Gehenna, we will fade once again. But this time, I believe it will be less fading, more instant apocalypse."

He paused, allowing her to take in the information briefly before continuing. "Many of the gods are searching for a solution, a way to draw Harmodius out of the chrysalis so that he may be reborn. Some are searching for the Consort, hoping he can help. Others are looking for ancient weapons that may be used to harm the Grigori if it comes down to a battle. They can easily heal themselves, so regular weapons won't work. Only those gods whose aspects are closest to Creation have weapons that can damage them permanently."

He looked to Gianfar and then back to Dagny as he leaned back against one wall of the elevator. "I came to Knowledge seeking information on these weapons, and as we spoke, he had a bright idea -- to create a vaccine for the gods that would attempt to hold off the rot of Void. We also spoke of a bioweapon -- something we could send to the Ashlands to infect the Grigori, allowing us to damage them permanently, without use of the ancient weapons." He pondered for a second as the elevator dropped down the shaft. "Perhaps there is also a way to use the same weapon to help the chrysalis -- to imbue it with the power of Creation's closest aspects. I still must search out Rebirth and Gaia, to obtain some of their DNA for use in our projects, but I thought we could at least get started, if you would be so willing to assist."

"Gianfar, did I miss anything? That was a fairly quick summary I think..."

Dagny blew off his questions with a wave of her hand. Maybe he would check the University for cameras when he got back. If a workspace reflects the worker then we would be descending…depths of perversion I haven’t seen probably. He was feeling more dour by the moment. Shkhin was blithe, arm still about his shoulder as they walked. He bit back the urge to correct Shkhin’s loose terminology. It isn’t less fading and more apocalypse. It isn’t fading at all, and the apocalypse is now. You are one of the weeks of it. And she didn’t wrap Harmodius in a Chrysalis, she unmade him and that’s what he became.

“There is one specificity you left out, being who is closest to Creation. Creation himself, Rebirth, Mother of All, Plant, and Animal. Those are the influences we need to work with. I was also thinking we should try to find a way to create Void here, or else leave the lab to experiment with it. Void is what we want to inoculate against, and what we want to harm. A captive Grigori would of course be the best thing, but that is untenable as far as I know. There is the Chrysalis, but we don’t know what influence it is. Void, Destruction? If it is Void influenced, we could affect it using the same technology. Creation, Rebirth and Gaia are the most powerful positive influences we could use. Shkhin, do you think we could get samples from Byrne or Gaia? Have you yet? If not, well, they wouldn’t appreciate it but I think you can summon them.”

He was disappointed, it sounded as if at the moment they were in the lab with nothing but their heads to put together.

"But a drop of blood, or a cheek swab if you prefer, could be my payment." She explained, leading them out into a vast, metallic warren of labs and hallways that made up the main floors of her labs. They hummed with electricity and complex machines, but were otherwise devoid of life. She had only the three humans serving her now, and they were all off elsewhere. A few more turns, and they came a massive door that took a card, blood, and a retinal scan to enter. Once Science was approved, the vault opened on its own. It was cavernous. And cold.

"Plant and animal I have, from both this dimension and others. The real, the mythic, and everything in between." She pointed to a computer bank set in the chilly wall. "Pick your poison."

While they perused her selection of genetic samples, she picked up two storage containers and carefully labeled them. DNA for DNA. It was only fair. "Swab or stick?" She called over her shoulder, pulling out a box of needles and of long handled swabs.

"As for void though, hmmm... Would a vacuum count, or are you looking more for anti-matter?"

Sh'khin was glad Gianfar had agreed to come. He could remember the things that Sh'khin would forget. He had a tendency to explain things in a glossed-over manner, as he had now told the story several times. "Thank you Gianfar. Please feel free to jog my memory or correct at any time. I'm afraid I may not know everything that has happened, but just versions of what I have heard from others."

"Gaia may be hesitant to help, but she is the Mother, and I think she would have a hard time refusing, considering the circumstances. She is a giver of life, and I think, with proper explanation, she could be swayed," he said. "I do not know about Rebirth, or what he would do, but for the sake of the Gods and Our Lord, I think he would agree to assist. I shall either summon them or find them within the Pantheon. I thought we should get started on the vessel first -- the virus capsule itself, and then engineer the innards once I spoke to Rebirth and Gaia."

He smiled at Dagny. "That sounds like a fine swap to me," he nodded. "I am sure you've started your collection already." With that, she spoke of plant and animal, pointing to a computer which surely contained what he had expected it to. He walked over to it, searching through the options. "Swab please."

"Gianfar, which do you think would be most appropriate?"

He knew nothing about how to create Void, so he kept silent at the question.

"Payment?" incredulous at her. "Woman...the universe is about to be unmade? Everything you know, everything you have made will be for nothing. How can you ask payment?" He was not about to give her any piece of himself. And he thought it was unwise for shkhin to do so, but what was he to say if the Throne was willing. Still her and needles couldnt be a good idea. "Give her a mouth swab if you must give her anything." Whispered in Sh'khin's ear, ruffling his dark hair.

As for a capsule, yes, that would be important. They needed a different medium for each delivery. A weapon, an innoculation, a medicine or poison for the chrysalis.

Science tsked under her breath, swabbing Plagues cheek and then sealing the swab into a container full of protein medium. It bloomed with diseases in moments. "Be that as it may my dear, I still ask for a trade."

"After all, if I worked for free what sort of creature would I be? A pathetic little do-gooder never able to embrace the purest form of my work." With one easy motion she reached over and pulled a few strands of hair from Gianfar's scalp and sealed them in a container of their own. Hair folicles were such useful little things.

"Now stop whining and tell me what sort of void I'm to conjure for you." She said simply, trading the containers of the gods' DNA for one of poison dart frog and another of wolfsbane. "There, flora and fauna. Shall we continue to the lab?"

She exited the room, expecting them to follow or get sealed in with her records. From there they went to another lift, went down a short moment, and were in the goddess's personal laboratories. They went to an empty one, full of potential. She pulled on protective gear, and gave some lab coats, gloves, and goggles to them as well. "Are we putting everything in one virus or making separate ones?"

The whisper in his ear did not go unheeded. Was he too trusting? He assumed that Dagny wouldn't do anything in particular with his genetic material -- just keep it for posterity. It seemed reasonable to him that a goddess of Science would appreciate collecting things of that nature. Eventually, he wanted his own collection of viruses and bacteria -- and what was so terribly different about that?

He let Dagny take the swab, and inwardly chuckled as she pulled hairs from Gianfar's scalp. He knew this one would get her way.

He followed her down the hallway and into yet another elevator, and then down another hallway, and into a laboratories that seemed to be the goddess' own. He put on the labcoat, buttoning it over his haori, put the goggles onto his head and pulled the gloves on. He hadn't thought of cleanliness... They wanted to make a virus, and here he was, full of them.

Hmmm. I don't know if it'd be necessary to build separate ones... Although I would like the one going to the Ashlands to be able to become an aerosol to allow it to become airborne, as well as create it so that it can be spread through saliva and blood contact.

I think injecting the chrysalis with it might be the best bet -- and it also needs to be injectable for the vaccine for the gods."

Gianfar’s eyes widened and he grabbed for her gloved wrist, but too late. “If we are going to reduce the laws of Creation and the motives of our hearts to simple cause and effect, action and reaction.” His opinion was clear in his tone, that this was rubbish. Even I cannot understand the workings of the universe or say which philosophy is ultimate truth, and you would sweep it all aside for your own purposes. Really he was livid that she had touched him. “Then in those terms – do not take liberties with my person again, or there will be a reaction.” The temptation to use his shock of enlightenment was tingling in his fingertips. He could do terrible things to her equipment. But they needed it… “Oooooh.” He finished. In the grand scheme, which she fails to see, it does not matter if she makes clones of me, so long as we succeed and the world is saved. But if she does something unwholesome with that hair…

He donned every piece of protective equipment she offered, till he was white and creaked and crinkled as he moved. His voice echoed from inside a hazmat mask, “Aerosol…that’s easy, but opening a gate to the ashlands is another cup of tea. I had been thinking of weapons for after they arrive.

The Chrysalis at least we have here, an unmoving subject. Injection would definitely work for it, like an intra amniotic…we could even take some of it for a sample, probably. But we need a big needle, and magical. Normal metal wont pierce that thing.

Innoculation is the easiest to deliver, hardest to make. Does being inbued with Creation help? Because void hurts Creation. I want to know how the holy weapons were made that can resist void. We should study one as soon as it is found, but for now…using rebirth and gaia, maybe we could make friendly bacteria that would help us heal? Or that would coat our skin and take damage for us? Its risky to try to imbue ourselves with void to become resistant.

First things first. We need void here to work with. There are worlds tearing apart at the edges all around us. If we can find a way to contain void, then we can go get a piece of it from the encroaching tatters and chaos. It would be very dangerous, do you have men to spare, Dagny?”

"Goons galore, but only three 'scientists' and even a little door into one of those dying universes. But how to contain nothingness..." She tilted her head, thinking, or perhaps just killing time until her Andoriko came to the door.

"Lassiter, fire up containment reactor and call my little interns down here. They seem to have discovered their purpose."

The clopping creature bowed and left, while Dagny sat down at a microscope and began combining the DNA of their flora and fauna. That done, she swiped at Plagues arm and rifled through his catalog of carriers to choose the best one. Pulling out a microphage, a predator of the single cell world related to human white blood cells, she inserted her genetic mixer into key parts of its genetic sequence. "There. Now we simmer and wait. Shall we all go check on the reactor?"

Another short jaunt, and they were in a room covered with computer banks, monitors, and keyboards. She cycled through them, returning in a few minutes. "We're ready. Do you think we'll live?"

"Yeah, I ran into problems when I was trying to think of how to get the weapon to the Ashlands. I wanted to use the most uninvasive technique possible -- and the one that would least impact our world."

When thinking of innoculating the chrysalis, Sh'khin debated where they could get a magical needle. "Has Forge been reborn? I wonder where we could get a needle like that," he pondered, wishing Medicine was present.

"I hope the weapons will be found soon. It would definitely be worth studying them. But yes, for now I think working on a bacteria to help us heal would be the best thing to start with," Sh'khin nodded. "I wouldn't want to use void to create immunity."

He chuckled softly again as Dagny mentioned her hired goons. "It's always good to have interns," he nodded, watching as Dagny grabbed his arm, took a sample and made quick work of creating the virus. "Wow, that was done a lot faster than I expected it would be. I need to come learn from you."

Again, he followed her out of the lab and down the hall into a computer-filled room. Watching her poke buttons and examine monitors, he wondered what would happen. "I feel optimistic," he said, trying to be cheerful, though his stomach felt a touch of nervousness.

Gianfar blinked, pulling the single sentence from the torrent of cheerful speech from Dagny. "Window...into a another Universe? What...here? You mean, we could have Void here now?" Was he the only one concerned? Yes. "Lets make sure it can be contained. Is this magnetic field based?" He gestured to the huge reactor. "Could we pump a field full of matter for the void to consume so that it didnt...go anywhere? And have that matter held within the magnetic field? I dont think magnetism can have an effect on the void itself. A window to another universe attached to you, not space, really?" He didnt expect he could get her to talk about it, she sounded more interested in anything with destructive possibility.

"Shkhin, she just took a microphage from you. Are you able to affect the behavior of your plagues, or only...send them out to do their good work? Could you convince it that it wanted to proliferate on our skin without eating us alive? It could be a sort of sacrifice. Creation imbued for potency - maybe the void would eat the bacteria on first impact, and we would get less damage, and the bacteria could proliferate to replace the ones lost.

Also, could you make a bacteria that was attracted to Void? The grigori are filled with Void. It would make the anti-grigori weapon specific to them as a target, or, sadly, any wounded on the battlefield."

"Of course sweetheart! Where do you think my host came from? Wherever did you get yours?" She wiggled her antennae at him before turning back to the screen. On it were three humans, one male two female, standing in the middle of a big white room. Or a big white reactor.

"Matter, on short notice." She explained, before closing her eyes and focusing. She couldn't control what came out from Illario's dimension, but she could at least choose where it pulled from. She felt around for bad things, unnerving things, tatters of matter torn asunder- ah. There. One little thought, and it came rushing through.

Her mortals had no time to scream.

"How pretty!" She cooed, opening her eyes and turning back to her monitors. She was mostly looking at the read outs of energy and such, but the picture was nice to. And darkly, disturbing blank. "It will collapse on itself, soon enough. Shall I remove enough for the little ones to feed?"

Plague thought for a moment. "Well, I can't really control them as I normally am -- I'm just not powerful enough yet. But now that I have ascended, I think I might be able to convince them to do my bidding. When we get back to the primordial soup in the lab, I will try instructing them," he replied. "As for a bacteria that is drawn to void, I think that may be possible too. I shall give them a talking-to," he said, wondering if he could really talk to his creatures. He'd just have to try he supposed.

He watched the monitor, noting the mortals who stood inside the starkly white and sterile room. And in an instant, they were gone. He tried to prevent his jaw from dropping, but it was a challenge. Such easy sacrifices... Not even he could get rid of a mortal in an instant. "I think that's a perfect idea," he said, a tremor in his voice.

Gianfar stared at the black where the mortals had been. Maybe not even just their bodies. It was the End...their souls too had been eaten, unmade. She said she had only three such servants, and she had sacrificed them where any object would have served.

"Dagny..." There was no point in asking her "why." People like that only thought about "how." He wanted to walk out. He couldn't be part of this. They were mortals, like all the others dying in the streets from Sh'khin's ascenscion. It was just three more deaths. But she was enjoying this. "I meant 'spare' to serve us. That was senseless. Wasteful. We could have used their help." His voice was sad with all the reasons he wasnt stating, a cracked whisper. Then his eyes widened.

The void was expanding, the containment reactor kept all other matter out. "Dagny, it needs more matter...and not people! Just...how do we pump particles in there? Something dense." He was useless at using technology, sanskrit made more sense than touch panels. "Sh'khin, get out of here, go to the lab and instruct the microphage, we will get this under control!"

What was this worry? I don't want Shkhin to be seeing this. I can' stand to hear his optimism and sweetness in the face of this horror. Plague is a kind of horror, but natural, part of a balance. It is its own life. This is unnatural, wrong, evil. I should have advised that we turn back as soon as we met her. Guilt made him look back and forth in panic, getting between Shkhin and the Void, and Dagny...shooing him.

"Go on..."

He had voiced his dislike of her practices less vehemently than Gianfar (or rather, not at all), for he felt torn between the fact that he was a hugely Destructive influence, and that he was trying to help save the world in his own way. Who said that Plague couldn't be a creative influence? The influence of his host on his current personality was obvious. Mortals were important to him -- and it wasn't just so he could ravish them with disease.

"Do you not need followers? Mortals to continue doing your bidding? To believe in you?" he asked her, suddenly knowing he should have said SOMETHING, anything.

Taking Gianfar's instruction, he did as he was told. He didn't want to see anymore anyway... "I'll be in the lab when you're ready," he said, frowning and looking to Gianfar for some sort of sign that he would be okay with the goddess by himself. "Good luck with the reactor."

He turned, glad to be leaving the room, and headed back to the lab.

Wasteful? Hardly. They had been the last of her old guard, and being young and easily frightened they had been cracking under the strain of all the death and destruction going on. She was happy to teach, but only if they could bloody well manage to pay attention instead worrying about things all the time. She huffed at Knowledge, not about to explain the situation as it was to this interloper. "You knew them, did you? Could fix their insanity, self-damage, and broken little minds? The wave of whatever that happened a while ago hit my little complex very hard: all of my adult scientists died, my host went insane, and that triad was severely damage. This was a kindness, but I suppose you would have preferred me to slit their throats instead?"

Was it the truth? No. But she was not one to let bitchiness go unanswered. This was her lab, after all. And he needed her help. He needed to learn to be civil. She smiled warmly, intending to show him how. "In any case, when I need servants I make my ow, such as the blue fellow who was here earlier.. And will gather followers of my own accord, thank you. Forgive me for caring about quality over quantity."

Turning on her heels she returned to the computer, feeding the void controlled streams of matter as well as magnetic fields in effort to encourage it to fold in instead of fling itself out. After half an hour, the void's growth stabilized, and it ceased to expand.

"I'd toss the bacteria in, but they'll probably need the Gaia and Rebirth bits first."

If there was something Gianfar disliked more than wantonness, it was having someone try to bullshit him. If his panicked anger had been flames sprouting in barn straw, she just put it out with a shovel full of manure. She didn't believe her own arguments; they didn't warrant a retort. He looked at her, dry disdain.

"So you clasped your hands to your chest and said "Oh how pretty!" A samaritan indeed."

Nothing about his glare implied he would learn politeness, if one defined "polite" as apologetic or submissive. He would have turned his back on her, but it wasn't a safe place for her or the Void to be.

She was handling their real problem at least. The void stopped its expansion after some tense minutes, her hands fluttering with unnatural speed over the dancing lights of the console. He winced at her final words. It meant that he and Sh'khin would have to...come back. Her words about slit throats being a mercy returned to mind.

"Hopefully Sh'khin can get those samples from Byrne and Gaia quickly." Let this be done with. I wouldn't like to still be embroiled in this when he is no longer ascended. "While that holds." he nodded to the great black egg.

"I'll go see if he's finished his St. Crispin's Day speech to his little armies."

[XiaoRen]

He shouldn't have left Shk'hin with Dagny. What would become of the willfully naive young god and that temptress? Had he unleashed the two of them on the Grigori or given HER the tools to make the end they all faced that much worse. Maybe the Grigori would take one look and just go back to the Ashlands, letting the conviction that existence was a bane sink in to the rest of their minds through good old fashioned Reason.

He rested his forehead on the cool mirror on the door to their room and let it soothe his headache. He needed Revei. It had been weeks since he was home. Ever since Samyaza had come, he had given himself over to his study. And the sum of that accumulated knowledge was in a chest in Dagny's labs. They probably wouldn't even look at it. But he couldn't bring himself to go back, not yet, not THERE. He shuddered. It was selfish to ask to be absolved of one guilt to ease another. But if Revei would forgive him for leaving him alone through the trumpet blasts so far, then he could forgive himself for being of so little use in this War.

Could Revei forgive him? How would he find his lover? Did any but nightmares now inhabit the Realm of Dreams? When mortals gave in to sleep from black exhaustion, if they dreamed at all, it would be twisted with the fear and rot of the waking worlds around them. What was left of them.

He sighed and opened the door. "I come late to ask, but are you..." The room was quiet. The dust gathered on everything was mundane, dirty, not the kind Revei sprinkled on childrens eyelids in ridiculous tales. It was tracked through with the pawprints of distressed Koratti. But even those now were gone. Revei! Where would he have gone in person? Couldn't he manage the affairs of his realm from here? What if he was...

No! He wouldn't think it. He would have Known if that were true, surely. Berating himself and fretting, he set to cleaning the room. Revei would come back. And when he did, he would find it clean, his books in order, and him waiting.

In the time since Revei had been damaged by trying to interface with the Pod's consciousness, he had stayed with Endiovar; the God of Silence had spent a good deal of time and energy towards keeping Revei comfortable. Which meant keeping it very silent and making sure no one but himself went too near the Dream God, since otherwise he was having horrifying hallucinations.

A week and a half had passed since that fateful day and it seemed that it was now time for his friend to return to his own home in the Pantheon. The Koratti swirled around their ankles as he gently guided Revei through the dusty hallways and past doors emblazoned with various sigil and rote.

The air about Revei's chamber-door felt disturbed. Endiovar pursed his lips a bit and pushed his way inside, a careful arm around the other man's shoulders. Immediately he felt a presence though he did not know who or what that might be, only that there were no warning sensations.

Friend then. Excellent. That made Silence feel much relieved and yet strangely apprehensive. Slow steps into the room - ah, it seemed to have been cleaned...recently too. A flash of movement caught the corner of Endiovar's eye and he turned his head in time to see Gianfar puttering about. He cleared his throat quietly to gain the other man's attention.

Revei was glad to return to his own rooms; Endiovar was kind, and he had come to regard Silence as a good friend during that week and a half during which Endi had cared for him. But there was always that soft and nagging feeling that he was misplaced, that he was not home. His hands had begun to sting less, his fingers to bend as they ought; but the weird images that resounded and multiplied in his vision at each small sound remained. He was grateful for Endi's quiet guidance.

He, too, felt the presence in the room as they entered; he turned his head, searching. Spotting the familiar grey figure, his eyes warmed, and he smiled more genuinely than he had in some time. "Gianfar," he said, then winced as the sound of his voice scattered distortions through the room, rippling and fluttering unnaturally.

The small sound jumped his heart like the lightning he could wield. Someone was behind him! He hadn’t heard anyone come in. His wings poofed on the instant, feathers drifting into the air as if someone had broken a pillow. He whirled to face whoever it was, irrational images of Grigori in his mind. And he saw Revei’s smile.

"Gianfar"

“Revei!” a word for relief, hand going to his heart. But something was terribly wrong. His lover flinched as if struck. He held himself so carefully, looked so thin, like an animal hunched in a corner wasting of a fatal wound. There were dark hollows under his eyes, and since when did the god of Dreams not get enough sleep. And who was this stranger with him? Mottle skinned and mottle souled, a morph then, fair in both senses of the word. Someone who would know?

“What has happened?” It was a demand, fear bringing out the headmaster in him. He strode to the stranger, looked him the eye, his own bright. It wasn’t Revei he was asking. Revei was falling apart as he spoke. He dared not rush to his side, dared not touch and hold him. Who knew what might shatter the glass threads of which he seemed spun, or who they might cut. But he was never tender in an emergency.

Gianfar. Endiovar felt a twinge of guilt at having so obviously startled the other God - but his concerns for Revei's state of mind and being kept him from feeling quite as bad as he might have otherwise. Sounds disturbed the God of Dreams in ways that only he could have explained...had he wont and words to do so.

The silent godling inclined his head delicately and lowered his lashes a bit in acknowledgment of Gianfar's obvious affection towards Revei. Lovers? Perhaps - at least the two were close friends. Endiovar muffled the sound of the grey God's words just slightly -- they would cause Dream untold pain and distress if left at full force.

'Please, Gianfar - move only slowly and speak softly...' Obviously, he was more than willing to explain - words or no. Silence would prefer to have this conversation with all of them seated; or at least Revei seated and resting. He did much better when he was under as little stress as possible and Endiovar's gentle nature insisted they care for him first.

Revei closed his eyes to shut out the resounding world, held one bandaged hand to his face as he tried to calm the sympathetic vibration of his heart. Not real, not real - A horrifying thought occured to him abruptly. Could he be hallucinating now, out of his longing for company and comfort? But no, Endiovar was not-speaking to Gianfar now; Gianfar must be real. A rush of relief flooded over him; then guilt. He was causing his lover worry.

He reached out blindly, shaky still.

Practical and calm, this stranger did know what had happened. There was an implied familiarity. How familiar? Was he a friend of Revei’s? Revei never spoke about old friends, except Morpheus. Well, they didn’t speak about that either. This was no time for jealousy, even with a beautiful stranger acting protective of his lover. Or maybe this pang was guilt that he hadn’t been there to care for Revei and this person obviously had been. It hurt to know so little.

Then Revei held out his arms, eyes closed, blind and searching. Such basic need was more reassurance than any words. Gianfar went to him…slowly. But was it safe to touch him? Revei acted like light was painful. All his senses might be raw. Gianfar stretched his wings forward like open arms for Revei’s hands to find. His wings were soft enough that even taxed nerves should bear the touch, and Revei would know them.

I’m sorry I wasn’t there. An apology required answer, and he didn’t want to ask anything of Revei. It’s alright. Reassurances were empty.

“I’m here” he whispered…softly. There was only the bed and the windowseat. The god of dreams wasn’t much for sitting when you could be lounging or laying down. He backed his way to the bed, leading, gathering Revei with his wings. He nodded for the stranger to sit there as well.

Revei reached for Gianfar and Endi did not interfere - he didn't really want to though a small twinge of something ran through the God of Silence as he watched Gianfar's wings enfold Revei; a chaste but loving embrace.

As indicated, Endiovar settled onto the bed near the pair. He moved slowly and carefully, mindful that all their moving, the speaking and perhaps even his own not-speaking could disturb the Dreamer's Guide.

'...' He had started to not-speak but stopped. The two deserved a moment to themselves; Endi understood and closed his eyes to afford them that much privacy. When Gianfar was ready, he would know by their bodies...by the subtle shifting of muscles and by the very air around them. Then he would begin the sad tale of Revei's injuries - the contact with Gehenna inside it's cocoon...how he himself was to fault for encouraging the dark-haired God.... The void-rot that had so quickly torn through Dream's hands...and of course, the painful and distressing hallucinations that had only calmed with the judicious use of his own powers to buffer Revei.

Days worth of information...some spoken aloud in that voice, quiet-bringing, hushed...but most not-spoken eloquently.

Soft feathers, soft touch. Strange, how sometimes it was only after absence that one knew how sharply a loss had been felt. Where had Gianfar been? Revei didn't know; he didn't know very much about his lover at all, he realized. They had danced delicately around one another, nervous, perhaps afraid to give up long-held secrets. " ... missed you," he said softly, guiltily. He would not ruin this.

He settled among the familiar cushions, breathing slow and deep, and leaned against Gianfar, letting Endiovar explain. He could feel the world bending and shifting around him, and tried to ignore it. Perhaps in time it would become familiar, tolerable. He stirred to protest Endiovar's self-blame, though; he had, after all, thought it a good idea, laid his hands against the dark cocoon of his own free will.

It made sense that the stranger used gestures and posture to explain things. A finger to his lips, a hand patting the air down like testing a pillow. “Speak softly, move slowly.” Not even a whisper. That meant even so small a sound could hurt Revei, and the whispered “...missed you” cost his lover something. Gianfar pressed his lips to Revei’s hair.

But as the stranger began to explain in detail what had happened, Gianfar found a small part of his mind wondering just how he was doing it. His acting was superb, his pantomime subtle, but even so the words shouldn’t be so clear. “It dreamed of things beyond understanding, all rage and chaos and unmaking. His hands wouldn’t come free. The rot began to spread, like film burning.” It was good there was a small part of his mind free, clinically parsing how “chaos” and “unmaking” could be rendered into gesture. Some part of his mind that decided this was the god of Silence - even a clever mute couldn’t convey this much. Because the rest of his conscious was diving into a maelstrom of panic. Thank goodness for that sensible echo - Silence. Silence. Don’t yell it.

You did what?!! You wanted to see what IT was dreaming?! What do you think it’s dreaming, it’s Gehenna!

Gianfar didn’t speak, but his own gestures weren’t too bad for conveying meaning. His eyes went wider then his glasses. His lips worked silently, then pressed into a thin line. Feathers shed over Revei’s arms and lap, and Gianfar’s heart was a loud tattoo in his chest beneath Revei’s ear, a noise he couldn’t help. If his hair weren’t already full silver it would have been by the end of the Silence's story.

It must be easier for him to see, who had not loved Harmodius. That thing wasn’t Harmodius, it was their End. Revei had touched the formless yearnings of the unnamed, the Void in that shell! The rot on his hands was nothing, what of his mind? No…no…he was still sane. Their names were still clear in Revei’s mind. Revei had called his out.

He waited till Silence was finished. That same small free part of his brain, always there to analyze, noted how Revei defended Silence from his shouldered guilt. Definitely friends.

He took Silence's hand between his own, they trembled some. Turning up the palm he wrote in it. Even the pads of his fingers were soft, the only callouses from writing. The words were stern, but his touch tender. He was grateful, to Silence for keeping Revei safe. To Revei for existing.

“I am Knowledge called Gianfar. Names become important. They are slipping away… May I have yours?” and then, because he could not help at least a small tirade. “Do you have any idea how lightly you both got off? How lucky we are to still have him?” He sagged after the last word, his hands going still, cupping Silence's between them.

Blond curls fell into the morphic godling's eyes as he bowed his head; of course Gianfar was right to chastise him – them- for being so brash and unthinking...but they hadn't known. None had...there was no one they had thought to speak with and none stop their actions. Endiovar had spent many days and nights before Revei had come, just sitting with that cocooned monstrosity. His thoughts had been churning and turning in his head until it was all he could do to not slam his fists into the stones in frustration at being unable to do anything.

Gianfar's unsteady, soft hands took one of his and Endiovar watched as the other god wrote though he certainly noticed the body language. Gianfar was upset and grateful and hurting for Revei and for himself.

'Gianfar, Knowledge...I am Silence, called Endiovar.' He matched the other's introduction and knew that what Knowledge said was true. Names were important- more now than ever. 'There is Nothing in the chrysalis and it hungers for what Is. We did not know...and knowing came at too dear a price.' His fingers twitched in Gianfar's hold; his wings following suit and causing little distortions in things viewed through them.

Revei's lips quirked into a tired, self-deprecating smile. "When have ... you ever known me to think too hard on a decision?" he whispered. "Perhaps I will have learned." He fell silent again, waiting out the waves of sparkling distortion. Then, "I'm sorry." He turned his face against Gianfar's shoulder, his breathing a little ragged. He was so weak just now, of his own foolishness and pride. That lesson, again.

They did not know.
It was all too clear how much of this was his fault. What did they know of Samyaza, of the old war, of the Void that was before all things, of the prophecies of Gehenna? Nothing probably, only that something terrible had happened to Harmodius and now that pod was all that was left. Of course they would have tried whatever they could think of, and worse, not for their own sakes but for Harmodius’s. Ohhhh….if there were anything left of Harmodius he would have words. But that was misplaced guilt wasn’t it…

“No…I’m sorry.” a whispered sigh that spoke of great weight, a few ashes drifting up from the charred pages of Alexandria. “I should have been there.”

He let the silence and weight settle around them, till Revei’s breathing smoothed. Then he sighed. What fools they were. With one hand he wrote on Revei’s back, and the other in Endiovar’s palm, writing with both hands not difficult for him. “We could wallow in guilt till the end, paint ourselves in ashes, to what purpose? We offer gratuity to the darkness when the price is already paid.”

He wouldn’t leave Revei again. But would Endiovar stay? As much as he was glad, flattered that Revei needed him, he didn’t delude himself that he could offer what Endiovar could. He wrote again. On Revei’s back, “As much as I would like to be alone with you, I think Endiovar should stay.” And on Endiovar’s hand, “Please…stay. He needs you.”

Had Endiovar known of Gianfar's intent towards Harmodius - should he return to be spoken to - he would have frowned and protested. The God of Silence was no mind-reader however, so he did not know what the pale God of Knowledge was thinking. He only knew that the man's body language had shifted to something slightly more defensive; the protective space he had formed around his lover was brought closer to himself.

Soft settling sounds, muted further for Revei's benefit, drifted about the trio on the bed. No words nor not-words were needed; the quiet wrapped itself around them gently, cradling each like a mother her cherished babe. Gianfar would be the first to break the silence; his fingers light but busy across skin and cloth.

A nod and a soundless exhalation; Knowledge was correct - self-flagellation was as unnecessary as fire in a volcano. Hard to let go of guilt and self-blame...any emotion was better than the gnawing unrest and fear that came with each day since Harmodius' fall.

'Ah--' Surprised that Gianfar would request that he stay, Silence's wings fluffed out for a moment before he was able to regain his composure. Though he could mute things for Revei, he had not expected to stay with him with his lover returned. 'Of course, Gianfar. I will stay so long as I am needed.' An attempt to give the two as much "privacy" as he could would be made; they had much to make up for...time spent apart was hard, very hard.

A guilty kind of relief. Much as Revei wanted to give his attention to Gianfar, he was wary of speech and sound and the resulting chaos. Knowing it likely wasn't real did not make it particularly easier to endure. He had come to appreciate the blanket of silence that Endiovar brought with him.

Secrets and more secrets. He liked secrets and was utterly weary of them. "Thank you," he whispered. Several of the koratti slid out of nothing to twine around him and Gianfar, expressing their concern in their own way. Another went to attend Endiovar, fixing one glittering, beady eye on him before nudging its head imperiously under his hand.

Revei sighed softly and flopped back onto his bed. Tired - Gianfar might be tired too; he had been away, journerying, doing things Revei didn't know about. He could write his questions and answers later. He held one hand out to the grey god, questioning.

“Thankyou…” his whole posture said. He let Endiovar’s hand go to pet the koratti that threaded around them. He had missed them, but it had been rolled in with missing Revei. He couldn’t tell if they were being silent now because they knew, or because Endiovar was doing something. Silent koratti would be something he could get used to.

Finding himself host as well as caretaker, Gianfar’s thoughts went quickly to logistics. Thank goodness Endiovar agreed to stay. But where? Best he be closeby, probably best he be in the same room. A morph’s powers were easily strained. But he couldn’t very well just sleep in the bed with them…

Revei’s hand was out to him, his eyes an invitation uncertain. Memories hijacked his thoughts, of this bed he hadn’t been in since he left Revei here, the sleeping they hadn’t been doing. Revei would read it in his face, the way his eyes lost focus and his always wan cheeks flushed healthy as if he'd just come in from the cold.

He didn’t dare look back at Endiovar for him to read the same. His words were practical courtesy, nothing more…had his blind hand not fumbled, brushing Endiovar’s wing as he reached to write on his shoulder, “I hope you can stay until he recovers. Do you have any things you need from your own rooms? I could help you carry them.” He added the last trying to be less obvious. He didn’t want Endiovar to feel a shred of unwelcome.

The koratti regarded Endiovar a moment before demanding attention - attention the god of Silence was happy enough to give it; his strong, graceful fingers rubbing at the creature's silky head and up under it's usually-clacking beak.

There was a moment, something between Gianfar and Revei that was meant for them only, that Endiovar wisely kept his head bowed from; the two were lovers, he knew this. Lovers deserved their moments without feeling an interloper's interference...regardless of how welcome or not said person was.

With slow movements, Endiovar reached to take Gianfar's hand from his shoulder and squeezed it gently, reassuringly. He felt no unwelcome at all and wanted to assure the grey god of Knowledge as such. 'I must to my rooms, there are things I will need as I am to stay here.' Gentle eyes changed shape slightly as his expression moved from serious to smiling. 'I will have assistance. You will want to stay with Revei of course.'

The good news was that even without Endiovar there the binding around Revei should hold - at the least for however long it would take the godling to retrieve things that he needed and make certain his followers were not going to fade away like so many fireworks in the night.

Relief and comfort and home, finally; a sanctuary within the chaos and uncertainty of what might or might not come. "Thank you," he said softly, both to his lover and his friend. Too weak, too proud; but with their help it would be made right.

As the door shut with a click inaudible to them, he kissed Revei with a likewise inaudible sigh. Revei tasted like bile and his tongue was dry with stress. If he had tasted like old fish Gianfar would have found it sweet. He lay down, still kissing, gathering him with arms and wings. Let his lover’s world be nothing but soft grey, with no distinct shapes or chiaroscuro edges to shatter. The koratti watched, curious, as he kissed past Revei’s lips, down his neck and collar, hands going to the sarong. He found himself blushing as the koratti tilted their heads and blinked, sharp obsidian chip eyes.

Since when have I been so bold or passionate? Have some bonds shattered in me along with the Throneroom windows? Time is finite even to mortal minds now, counted down in trumpet blasts. The weeks are become hours, seconds, short as the silence between our funeral knell. There is only the present, and I have so much to tell you.

And he ducked down within the shelter of his own hunched, wrapped wings. So enfolded, private under his own wings, he wasn’t shy. Gentle, patient, slow…but not shy. He would find how much his lips could say without words. He knew that Endiovar knew, and that he wouldn’t be back for a safe while.

Indeed Endiovar knew - things un-spoken so clearly; the feeling there, between Revei and Gianfar, required - no, demanded - time. Precious moments like miniature universes stretching into unfettered eternities for those involved. The gods pressed so close, closer emotionally than physically...feathers floating all about.

He knew and would remain away, issuing orders and having his quarters straightened. Incense burnt like small offerings to the gods of Love, of Peace...asking for quiet moments savored. Chocolate and fine wine on the tongue. The smoke helped to air the rooms of their sick-bed scent; stale sweat and unrest...countless nights spent pacing and fretting - chasing away the invisible monsters of Revei's mind. The endless quiet that left his servants ill at ease though they suffered it well, knowing that the stillness was the only thing helping the Dreamer's Guide fend of utter insanity.

Silence also knew that while he would remain with Gianfar and Revei as much as possible, until he was no longer needed...he would absolutely be coming back to his rooms from time to time. He himself needed the space away; time to reflect and let his weary head rest as he could. Time to be pampered and petted and time to feel the sharp, bittersweet ache of loss in his chest...loss of things had and of things not had.

in progress here

[XiaoRen]

moar threesome sexytime

[XiaoRen]

Remembering the Trial 1

Whenever one part of his life was polished off, it seemed another was gathering dust. He was feeling better than he had in any memory. He had been born musty, dust colored, worn in and comfortable. How could he feel this new, this clean? The things he had been doing werent considered clean by most written standards.

It wasnt just his lovers. There were green shoots spearing from the ashes in the gardens. Harmodius had returned. It annoyed him that it would make him feel well, make him feel like...like sprouting all over the place. He had stood by while the world was in utter chaos, let others reorder it, and they were back to square one. Harmodius even still called himself Harmodius, from the joyous voices he had heard in the hallways, heralding the return. They couldn’t come up with a new aspect for him? No they all wanted things back the way they were. Why...why had he stood aside? Where had his brain been?

That had an obvious answer.

And while he was polished clean, the Library had been gathering dust. His worshippers would have left by then. The Week of Decay...not many of the books would even have survived. They would be moldering piles. Now they would be moldering piles with plants sprouting from them.

He sucked his teeth in annoyance to himself as he stood before the doors of the Library, not yet ready to go in.

A seemingly endless list of things that required his attention loomed before the black beast known to some as Fragment and to others as the not-yet-reborn Dragon King, Xia Lu Ling. Either name uttered would bring about the great shaggy head and cause the multiple sets of red eyes to narrow in annoyance -- his name was only spoken when one wanted something of him. Obnoxious when all he wanted to was to regain his Lord's side and drown himself in the singular pleasure of his duty. Creation was back.
And yet, he was stuck -- doing other things, less pleasant (to his mind) things. Padding about the dusty hallways of the Pantheon, seeking out those he had business with. Or would have business with. One thing that had been pulling at his thoughts since before Creation's return to Existence was Knowledge. Gianfar. The dream that wasn't a dream at all. Fractured memories brought forth in the hunt for scraps of his past knowledge; anything that might have proven useful in the ultimate quest. Gladdened that his lack of knowledge had not stopped Creation's return, Yu had been left with a niggling thought that he should speak with the dove-grey god.
This was why he found himself moving towards the library, like a good bloodhound. And wonder of wonders, there was the dirty bird himself! Smelling much like coupling and rot -- void rot. interesting.

He heard sniffing behind him. That sound was never dignified, and at the size the muzzle sounded to be, probably unsafe. He poofed. The reason for the bristled feathers might be the electricity that now crackled in the air around him, but the scent of anxiety was under it. He whirled, robes cracking.

"You!" or perhaps he meant "Yu!" it wasn’t apparent. Thank goodness. A Known beast, one who had helped him. Not a safe beast, but the Dragon King would muzzle him from snapping up other gods for no reason. And he had no reason to eat him. Gianfar let the electricity fizzle.

"Well met on a day when there is no enemy to bring us together."

That wound from before wouldn't be entirely healed yet. But you didn't ask after weaknesses from wounded dragons, it made them defensive.

No, no reason for the Dragon King to allow his host to devour the God of Knowledge. Even if there were some reason to be found, discovered or otherwise brought to play, one could only surmise that Yu the Five Claw would bring such information to his Lord and Master for a proper Trial rather than taking such action into his own hands...er, claws.

"Indeed." The beast's fur rippled as he sniffed at the tangled scents coming from Gianfar and moved closer and closer until he could sit on his massive haunches and reach out to touch the heavy robe, should he wish. "I had wont to speak with you, Gianfar. A lucky day, to find you here - Chance smiles on me yet again."

Chance had smiled upon them all with Creation returned...but of course, a price had been exacted. A very heavy one that would not soon be forgotten by any but the most careless of intelligent creatures.

Yu was getting stronger, devouring the devourer, giving his own form to that amorphous, primeval mind. That had been a string of well constructed sentences. Polite ones. He smiled and bowed in greeting to the present King...and took a natural step backwards rising from it. Why was he coming so close? Maybe the dragon smelled Revei and Endiovar on him. Gabriel had sniffed and sniffed until he pushed him away the first time. Dragons had shameless fascinations.
"What did you want to know?"
He looked around "This is not much of a place to speak, but I fear what lies within will be worse." It was presumption he was prone to. He assumed that people came to him for knowledge, rather than with news. At his prime there had been no sense in giving him news. It wasn’t true anymore, but the habit remained.

Why did he move closer? Perhaps he was trying to detect through scent that which he wanted to know: answers. Why had he recalled, in broken bits and flashes, being party to a trial of sorts involving the grey God? What crime had been committed to have the Crown and his closest so grave?

"Where we speak means little to me, Gianfar, though you may wish privacy. I suggest going inside." He paused and shifted his form; body surging upright with a series of crunching-snapping-cracking sounds - it would be much easier to deal with Knowledge as something more...humanoid in appearance. "My memories of the past are as broken and fragmented as the stained glass in the main hall." This didn't bother him so much for most of what happened in the past. He was different now and would not be the same as he had been previously no matter what memories he did or did not have.

What did bother him was Gianfar. That little bit of something. It tickled and he felt the need to know. "I had hoped you may be able to fill in some of the gaps." A smile that looked more like a snarl with his host's features; all tooth and fang and disconcerting red eyes.


For the first time Gianfar's anxiety of Yu's host wasn't his hindbrain telling him there was a predator. A polite suggestion that wasn't a suggestion. It was the Five Claws who wanted to speak to him, who said step inside the way a guard did. It made him want to fly. But he was on the steps of his own Halls and if he left now, on an instinct, he exiled himself. You did not begin by fleeing a Dragon King and then turn around. There was no threat in his words, only his bearing, his tone. It could only be the menace of the host.
It was natural for a Dragon King to want to know of his past. They were the beloved of Harmodius. If he came back as Himself, maybe they felt they needed to be Themselves too, to serve him. He could come up with a hundred rationalizations in a breath why Yu would want to know of his past. But the instinct remained.
Had Yu remembered something, as he had, at the name Samyaza? That name had been the key, for him. A door in the back of his mind, groaning with the weight of the sea behind it, a lock rusted or flaked with blood, it had held through an entire lifetime of his. Just the touch of her name, unuttered in that other lifetime, had been enough to release the tide. The old bitter salt of his discontent, the meetings, the ciphers, and at last the coup. His name, which had not been Gianfar then, forever tied to the foul Grigori, a misbegotten alliance that he had rued. He had been brooding on those memories himself, for in that life he had known much of the Grigori. Knowledge that would be needed soon, when the war began anew. But he had not spoken a word of it to anyone. Harmodius, whether he remembered or not, had forgiven him. The price had been paid. Why should he feel guilty. This paranoia was classic guilt. There was no reason at all for Yu to pluck that tile from the fields of mosaic that were the Ages past.

"Then, if you would, you will be better able to open the doors." They looked rusted shut. His apprehension was worn plain. He went along because all his reasons were wild soaring kites of the imagination, and had no evidence to tether them to fact.

Knowing full well that his host's form and his own bearing imposed upon it would make the God of Knowledge uncomfortable, Yu smiled inwardly. It was good to know that he could still play these Games with another god,rusty as he was. It had come in handy quite often with the mortals he dealt with too; menace where there was none in truth.

"Of course, Gianfar." Broad, claw-tipped hands reached for the rusted handles built onto the massive Library doors and muscles bunched and knotted under thick, silky fur as the Dragon King pulled steadily. The doors made a tortured sound; movement forced upon them after being still and un-touched after so long. The wood had warped as heat and damp and rot paid their "respects" in turn; pieces of it crumbled and rained upon the two gods and the floor as Yu pulled.

It took effort to open the doors; much effort and the reward was a foul series of odors attacking his sensitive nose: rotting wood and paper, heavy mouldering tomes...stale air and the faint tinge of brimstone left over as a gift from the week of Hell. Yu hissed in a breath and narrowed his eyes at he destruction before them.

Ohhhhh the books. It was one thing to know what they had suffered, but to see the hills and leaning towers that receded into shadow, a fungal landscape of precarious shapes, to smell it. His eyes glittered with more than the tears of the stench. He forgot Yu for a moment, walking ankle deep into the debris until his hand rested on a gilded railing, an artifact like a piece of a sunken ship rising from the sea floor. The balcony that once overlooked his temple, his gathering of refugees. There were bones, real skulls to match the ones in the roots of that white tree, that mosaic that was still writ plain on the ground below in the dim dark.

He turned, and Yu loomed there, silhouetted from the now bright seeming light through the door. Bipedal he was tall enough to cast a shadow to Gianfar's feet.

"They are only books" he said forlorn. "Only bodies. The Knowledge is not lost. But when it is written again, it will not be the same." It did not sound like he meant only the books.
He took down his glasses to wipe the grime that had poured from the doors off of them. After he put them back on, he pushed them up on his nose, regarding the dragon king with a crown of splinters and charcoal chunks caught in his hair.

He stood quietly, watching as Gianfar's eyes took in his loss. Only books? Not quite, but he just let the other look about. "Creation returned to Throne built from the bones and bodies of thousands. More." Nothing could be the same - hell, Xia Lu knew this from personal experience: he was not the same as he had been during Plague's attempt to find a proper host; as he had been when Edana held him to her breast..nor even as he had been Before the Fading.

"It's the nature of things to change, Gianfar." The Dragon-hiding-in-host stepped into the remains of the Library further, not crowding his companion but moving closer to him. Knowledge amused in that moment; a forlorn child returning to it's nursery after a blaze and wondering at what would come of the destruction. Imagery made all the more true by the debris caught in his hair.

Six eyes closed in sets; staggered blinking as Yu the Five Claws thought best how to get what he wanted to say out and what he wanted to know from Knowledge. What had he done back then, Before? Did it have any meaning now? Was his ability to remember it only because of the shock it had caused, whatever the god of Knowledge may have done? "And the nature of beings to raise questions to dreams. I have wont to Know something that lingers in this self...who better to ask than yourself?"

"None better, except perhaps Harmodius. How much does he remember? He is returned under the same name, is he not? And with the same memories too? You say it is in the nature of things to change...I wonder." Not nearly enough has changed. We see the threads unwoven, but they are only the end of a rent that started much farther up the tapestry. And now we would patch the hole with the same cloth that tore in the first place. This is a Dragon King I am with. I must remember myself. I dare not speak against Harmodius in such company. But who better from whom to learn how Harmodius is now, who he is now? Well...I answer my own question. None better except Harmodius himself. He hadn't seen Harmodius since he and Destruction had tangled words and more.

He turned to walk, posture inviting Yu to follow. He didn't notice the debris in his hair to brush it away. "This was our greatest chance to change. This Age. Maybe its better that the books are gone." But he sounded like he was making a point, not like he meant it. There was still an ache in his voice as he looked at the shelves. "Should I rewrite them, page for page, as they were? Or start anew. What pages are you looking for me to rewrite of your own?"

He walked halfway down the staircase, the mosaic below, the once heart of his budding Temple. The staircase at least was free of books. He sat down on a stair, the only seats they were likely to find on clean stone.

Gianfar's words smacked of sass in that moment; he was saying more than he meant when he spoke to the beast that was to be a Dragon King; perhaps not. Yu's eyes glinted against the inky blackness of his fur and the dull glimmer of scales underneath. "We do not know what he remembers, yet. As for returning with that Name...this has been the doing of the masses." Not that Gianfar would know, the scholar had spent his time holed up with others, missing in a time when his singular knowledge - his self - would have been best put to use. "Change comes only with concerted, thought out effort, Gianfar-of-Knowledge. In panic, we return to what we know." He paused and made a very beast-like whuffing sound. "It is good to have Creation returned, is it not?"

Padded footfalls over debris, the swish of an inky tail brushing against dusty flooring; Yu settled near Gianfar, head cocked in a manner that clearly said 'I am watching you, weighing you.' "I dreamed, Gianfar. A trial I would know more about as the details have been lost to me, like sand in my palm...the grains of memory slip away. The import is not to keep to what I was, Before...but to know. " He showed his great teeth and began picking pieces of plaster from his tail for something to do with his hands. "What wrong was committed, that Knowledge was brought 'round to Him like a common thief to the court? I saw, standing by the Crown, but I do not understand." And he sorely wished to. Not knowing had left him feeling empty; parts of him had been lost forever; this was fine, he would refill those pieces with new...but this one thing, he had a large fragment of and needed to fill in the gaps left by the corrosive hands of time.

Something in him had warned him. Why had he scorned primal, instinctive knowledge for reason? The tableu was so exactly what he feared he didn't panic, but could only look at it from suddenly outside the situation. Yu was on the stairs above him, blocking exit. Yu was reborn into a hulking, ravenous, short tempered (even compared to a dragon) host. Yu remembered the trial, or at least that there had been one. Adrenalyn washed him from head to toe in a readiness that would be no more use against a shapechanging dragon than it had been against Destruction's tails. But Destruction had chosen not to kill him.

What would Yu do if he knew?[ The dragon king couldn't take him before Harmodius for a trial that was finished. The beast the dragon rode wouldn't care for a trial at all.

He'll tear me to pieces.

His face was ashen as his wings and he had gone perfectly still.

I am a terrible liar. He will know if I lie. He already smells my fear. Even to pretend to search my mind for what has been in the forefront of it all this time would be a transparent dodge.

"Those are two very different questions...accusations if you had more flesh to frame those skeletons of words. Am I wrong? Well, for where I have been. I should not have been so absent. I stand guilty of that, as do many. I should not have given over my research of the Old Tongue that I began with you, or things might be very different now." Perhaps, with words of Changing and Making I might have been able to loose Creation and Destruction as primal forces into the world, not housed in a mind, a body, a soul that craves to be loved.

"I did what I could for Shkhin during his week on the Throne. But he left me for applied knowledge in a corset and rubber gloves, damn her. Then I found Revei...what Gehenna had left of his mind and his hands. You will see how unreasonable people can be, when a lover is involved." for once he did not blush. The color was too far gone from his cheeks, past recall. "I chose not to leave his side."

He paused, finding it hard to meet six pairs of eyes with just two. "You speak of a Trial. What is this? Am I on the stand, here on the steps to my own Throne? What have you come here to do? You were never the sort to divorce knowledge and action."

It pleased Yu and host that Gianfar's fear and discomfit were so plainly written to see. Obviously, the god of Knowledge was now hiding something from him, something he wished to know even more fiercely than before thanks to the reaction he'd recieved. The beasts's jaws worked a moment, the expression that could only with the loosest of interpretations be called a smile wavered now and again towards a predatory leer. Though the Dragon King was in charge, his host's form was still not wholly his to control and Gianfar was making it all but salivate at the thought of action, violence to come.

Poor grey dove, intellect and knowledge now pitted against animal and blindly loyal Dragon.

Long moments filled with a silence that wasn't silent at all; The Emblem Pillar would wait for Gianfar to cease his mental acrobatics and bear words into the quiet. It was better this way. "Indeed. Though I find you not so elegantly faulted. These times were not for any one, but all to push, to pull. That you fell by the way and abandoned your duty...well. You have your reasons." The tone he used made it absolutely clear that he found Gianfar's negligence annoying, dismaying even, but that he did understand being distracted by one's love. "What changes could be wrought with the one best suited to direct at the side of his lovers." Two. Plural. Gianfar couldn't hide the scent of two on his skin from Yu, not in this form.

"No, Gianfar. You are not to stand trial here, now. The present is most important, but I am stuck in our past, unknowning. However, your reaction cries loudly of a guilty heart and piques my interest." He flicked his tail and schooled his host's features into something less...hungry. "I came to ask of the past, Knowledge. I want to know what you did and why you stood so pale before the Court.." While the pale-haired god knew that previous trial was over, knew punishment had been meted out and all set aside by Harmodius, Yu did not.

'Don't be afraid, Grey-dove. I cannot eat you now....'

Fragment's words floated up; an assurance that he would cause no harm to Gianfar where the King would give none he was not sure of.

Gianfar's mouth opened and worked, and the blush found him. "Yu....you...you keep your nose out of other people's robes where it doesn't belong." Of course he could smell them on him, Gianfar already knew that. But to mention it so plainly, so uncouth. Yu wanted him on edge, and he had him there. So on the edge of the stair he was almost off of it. But the indignation lent him authority again.

"You come sniffing after your past and into mine, fine. But remember, it is past. This is not your master's business you are about. He finished with me. The sentence was carried out."

The last time Yu knew this along with all the other Dragon Kings, when Harmodius asked him before all their company, before Gaia's sad eyes and Lucius's disbelief. The last time the Dragon Kings had lashed valleys into the throneroom floor with their tails, necks coiled back in rage, claws out. They would have eaten him then, but for Harmodius's upraised hand. They would have charred him, rent him, coiled and crushed him for what he had meant to do. I had not mattered that the act was impossible, failed, his plans betrayed before they ever learned of them, and he impotent before the Throne. If it had not mattered then, he didn't expect it to matter now. The act was past, and his hand wasn't raised against anyone now, but the shock of it would be new to Yu's ears, the rage would be fresh.

But the maw was gaping, and he needed to feed it something. If he tossed some scraps from the roast, would the hound go after them and be appeased. Or would he sit and wait for the whole thing?

He shook his head free of dust and ruffled his wings, settling all the feathers. "It was the Thirteenth Age. You were young then." Younger than I was, his tone implied.


Further pleased, the Dragon King settled back, his tail thumping heavily against the floor; dust clouding up with each slow thump-thump. "Yes, I know." If he were going to chase after the grey god of Knowledge, it would be for things in this time, as it were. "Plainly, I want to fill in a gap that troubles me. It's like hole in one's cheek -- you know it would heal if you could but cease tonguing at it. Until I know, I cannot let it heal."

If he were bothered or affected by the pale-haired god's authoritative tone, the beast showed no signs. Gianfar might have been pleased to know that he gained a bite of respect for not backing down, for showing a spine and standing up to his bullying (that was really what one should call it).

Dragon King in host's garb settled to listen; the pleasure he gained from hearing a good story was not diminished in the telling being of his own past. He had always sat rapt, listening to words spoken by Harmodius and while Gianfar lacked the command to keep him rapt, he did not lack for interest. "Go on, if you will. I am most interested." A deep, gravelly chuckle rumbled upf rom the beast's chest - young indeed! Tartly sweet, that Knowledge would make a point to call out such a thing, even just in tone and meter. A cruious thought struck him -- what had he looked like, back then? That was a question for later, if at all - appearance was fluid and mattered little, really.

It was easy to recall to mind the young worlds, the feeling of newness and wonder. This age of their rebirth was not so different, and again…She came into it.

“Not only you dragons had stepped fresh onto the stage for a new act.” How beloved the dragons had been, their majesty and ferocity. They were the greatest jewels in Harmodius’s crown. But Gianfar cared most for the dust specks in Harmodius’ train, little flickers so brief and multitudinous they dazzled the eyes. “The mortals came too. I was the third to know of their coming. Of course Harmodius and Gaia knew, conceived them in themselves. But as soon as the thought was made flesh, I knew it.” His voice fell in tone and he shook his head, “Death must have known them fourth. They were hardly here, dew on the leaves of Yggdrasil, even the morning light of our presence could sear them away. I loved them. Gods, we are complete in ourselves, unadultered, and don’t feel much need to look beyond ourselves. We may learn but we are impossible to teach.” It sounded an ancient exasperation. “ Mortals are so curious, so changeable. It was a challenge to give them seeds of knowledge small enough they could absorb them, but do so and the garden flourished wild. They made a hundred languages of the first I gave them.”
Why was he telling Yu all this? To the ears of a judge and an enemy…if he was an enemy. It wasn’t that personal yet. Yu was dangerous and Gianfar knew where they would stand in the end, but he had always like Yu. He even liked this brute host in a way, who sat there with slavering and thumping his tail, terrifying and endearing as a dragon should be.

“Creation delighted in them even as I did. Every day I would tell him of their doings. We were much in each others company then, when so many new things were being made. But what Creation loves, Destruction loves too. Even the gods and ageless immortals are ravaged by that love when it comes rough to Gaia’s bed. Many times throughout the Ages we had risen battered from his caresses for Creation to balm our wounds. That Age was different. The mortals, when Destruction first turned his gaze their way and swept his tails over them – so dewdrops fare when a wildfire passes. The words I had given them weren’t enough to frame their sorrow and rage, let alone protect them, and then their tongues were silent. When Creation came again I asked him why. Why make something so fragile?”

His answer had been sorrow and a question. “You do not see?” It was the first they had been disappointed in each other.

“It was fated to happen over and over. Lithos and I taught the mortals to carve enduring knowledge into stone, Melanthos and I taught them to build weapons, Panacea and I taught them to make medicines. Harmodius himself gave great gifts to the heroes of men that stepped out of those ashes, gifts to endure. But I looked at the flourishing garden and could only think of how it would wither. I wondered if there could not be balance. This was Ages before Aristogeiton came, and achieved with a fearless laugh what we never did with our best laid plans.” There was both wonder and bitterness in his tone.
Gianfar ruffled his wings in agitation. He wasn’t getting into Aristogeiton. It wasn’t the issue at hand.

“I brought it up in my Forum, among my philosophers and friends. What would it mean for the Crown to be balanced? Could it be done, and how? Harmodius had no qualm with our words. He has never bridled speech or thought, or held ideas as crimes. That isn’t why we began to meet more privately. More that…we were discussing the very nature of the Crown, of Yggdrasil, of the words of Making and the structure of creation. It isn’t something for any ears that happen to pass. We became a society of sorts, meeting in my own house. Balance and Tranquility were there, Hearth, Harvest, Liberty…and Silence. Endiovar lent us his power for caution’s sake. No word spoken in our company would ever pass beyond the walls where we met. Imagine my surprised, then, when a stranger came into our midst, knocking on my own door.
Strangers didn’t exist for me. Many beings passed beneath my notice, but someone in my sight with my will bent on them was Known. Only Harmodius, Gaia, and Lucius have always been opaque, unKnowable. And yet…I did not know this woman, standing cloaked and cowled on my doorstep. It meant her power was great, that she must be an instrument of Harmodius himself. I was furious, afraid. I thought he had sent her to end our meetings, and I could not understand why He hadn’t come Himself. All eyes turned to me, assuming I had invited a new voice into our midst, and Liberty asked me who she was. I had to say, ‘I don’t know.’

She stepped inside and pushed back the cowl, full lips and blonde hair you will remember. She said, ‘I am Samyaza, and I am here to learn.’” He paused to give Yu time to growl. Let the dragon remember his hate for her, heart of all their recent woe. Let Yu think of her as the betrayer, the shared enemy, the greater evil. It might distract him.

Words; so many words spilled forth from Knowledge's pale lips into the large, furred ears pricked so intently to capture them. Facts and names fell to Yu like droplets of water into a container that slowly worked to fill it. He wished a flood, truth be told - but he got drips and drabs that made his host's impatience push forward to demand action of some sort; a demand that was squelched and strapped down within himself. Yu knew well that it took time for the whole of some things to be revealed; he could wait. He had learned patience the hard way: falling to the Fading and then failing repeatedly with hosts.

Balance.Tranquility. Hearth. Harvest. Liberty. Silence. The curly-haired god that spent much time by the Chrysalis. Yes, he knew of Silence and understood why he would have been brought into that circle; Gianfar's words rang true in the murky depths of Xia Lu Ling's being.

Samyaza. The beast-King's fur bristled and his teeth shone bright-white in the light. Snarl, growl - yes. He felt rage and hatred fill his heart and flex his claws. Oh, he would have eaten her - worse, he would have rent her limb from rotting, half-realized limb and left her to live eternally in thousands of little pieces if he could have but found a way of arranging it. Broken but knowing...until Time stopped. "She came...inthat time?" Yu wanted to know though asking might prove distracting to their conversation's aim.

It was just as he had hoped. The beast was a the end of Yu's leash. The rage had a name. He had only to let it loose.

"Yes. I know not whence. The mystery of the Grigori remains, when and why they came into this world. Who ever deceived the gods before her, the Mother of Lies?" He let his own deep shame and hatred surface. They were there. The seed of destruction who had played him false, made him, HIM to believe lies. She had toppled all his hopes and left him standing on the gallows to pay the price alone. "Samyaza" he said it again, baring his teeth and hissing it, hand in a fist. "She was beautiful then, with the Void all under his skin unseen and no rot on the surface. We were so naive. I could have found the Truth if only I had looked, but I was convinced. How could she hide herself from me unless she was from Harmodius, of the higher court? All courts have their assassins. She displayed powers I thought were gifts from Destruction as proof of her status. The ability to wither and unmake things. I did not think of the Void, because never before had it been present Inside, contained in the realms of Creation. I never guessed, such a fool was I. And so I let them among us. Yes Them. She came with her followers. I spoke to them of our hopes, of our conjectures. Of Creation and Destructions very nature, of Yggdrasil and the making of all things. I taught them terrible secrets - I thought they already knew! They listened so knowingly, and spoke in hints and promises. She made more than a fool of me, she made a traitor.

She has done this more than once. Gaia led her to her own husbands side! So it was with us. She learned of me how to travel the paths of Yggdrasil, how to enter the halls of the Pantheon unchallenged, and even...Names. If her followers had waited for her own secret plans to bloom within our Council I think the unmaking would have been complete." He did not mention what the plans of his Council had been, or what they had hoped to do. It had not mattered, having failed. Let Yu not hear of it now. Instead, what DID happen. "But even among her own followers there was discord, impatience. Before she was ready." Before any of us were ready. "Three of them, Azazyel, Batraal, and Ramuel by name, crept into the Crown's chambers, using other Paths to get past the Dragon Kings and Lucius's rooms. Thank the Heavens that they were lesser minds than Hers and did not truly understand. Destruction is the easier to kill. Creation is the true enemy of the Void. They thought that by forcing him into that aspect, he would be at the Void's mercy. Even as they spoke Creations true name, the Void in them leapt up in answer, the opposite of Harmodius. Void poured from their lips, seeking Him, rotting their throats and tongues. It is Chaos, it was out of their control, it filled the room. And He was pulled fully into that aspect by their naming of Him. Before they could ever steal his name he was Making, filling the room with life in clouds of blue and green light, energy and cells and spores, starbursts of wings and scales, beings flashing in and out of existence even as he Created them.

You Dragon Kings poured in at the sound, caught the Grigori in your jaws, roared at the pain of Voids burning cold touch, the vaccum. Even as you were worrying them like rags, He commanded you stop. And in that confused moment the three took the Paths. They left as they had come, slipping from that part of the world. I think he was angrier at the damage to you dragons than even at the attempt on his life. And he knew, of course. Where could anyone learn such things, but from me."

[XiaoRen]

As Gianfar spoke, Xia Lu Ling listened - not just in passing, but with true interest and understanding; here were answers and information that tickled his senses with it's familiarity and yet were new...fresh even, to his mind. As the grey-winged dove's expression twisted with rage and hatred, the Dragon King found him oddly beautiful. It brought color to his face and breathed life into the whole of his being. Fetching, really.

Hearing all that Knowledge spoke of made Yu's insides roll and twist; so painful! Horrors wrought upon the Gods by their blindness and wont to share. Perhaps also because they each had felt they could not be harmed though certainly in the correct manner, they could. "My heart tells me you speak but truths though I do not recall any of these things you speak of. Not pain of Void tearing at my flesh nor the betrayal of the Grigori." Yu's tail flicked a bit and he looked through Gianfar for a moment, mind sliding about internally to think on these things.

"Beloved to Him, but it was only natural He be angry." Slowly, the beast-god was shifting his thoughts away from being anything but mildly wary of Knowledge to more dangerous things; the pursuit of Samyaza being the chief one.

"Where indeed, Gianfar of Knowledge. And after? What happen then?"

“They all escaped” The six red lights shining on his chest still made his skin draw tight, hair on end. But he knew the great danger was past. Yu didn’t see him anymore. He saw Samyaza floating into the sky, challenge unanswered, as the gods scurried like upset ants and Harmodius’s Nameless corpse turned itself inside out on the throneroom floor. Yu saw the Grigori escaping.

“I could not know what happened with Harmodius or the Grigori. As I have said they are beyond my fathoming. But instantly I knew what had happened to you. The Dragon Kings had seen their faces, and so I knew them. I knew that three of these supposed servants of Harmodius, my confidantes, had attacked you and Harmodius.”

I knew that they had acted preemptively and alone, and they had failed. I knew our coup was over before it was begun.

“ I flew in a rage to find Samyaza. But I looked for her in the wrong place. I still assumed that the Grigori were Harmodius’ assassins, and must live near him.”

They had me so fooled, letting me think that their closeness to Harmodius would be the key to our plans, when in fact they were playing me for the answer of how to get close to him.

“I found Harmodius on His way to find me.” Harmodius’ sorrow had been terrible, in the old sense of the word. His eyes were hollow, dry over those red and blue harlequin stains of past sorrows, as if the last drops of mercy were gone. They had turned Gianfar’s heart to dust in his chest. In that moment Gianfar felt sorrow that Brutus cannot have felt as Julius gripped his arms in final spasms, Judas when his lips brushed a cheek salted with blood tears. But he felt no remorse. He might yet have hidden the truth of their coup, blamed the Grigori entirely, said they tricked him into giving them such knowledge – the same half truths he was feeding Yu – except that the sorrow in him answered Harmodius. The underlying truth, that he had betrayed his Maker, had been plain to them both. But the details fell into immediate confusion.

“Samyaza's lies had inked the waters. He asked me,‘Who were they? What did you tell them?’ I said, ‘You don’t know the faces of your own assassins? Is it not you who made them unfathomable, hidden to my mind? Where are the others?’ He said, ‘I have no assassins. What others? Tell me what you know. What have they done to my Dragon Kings?’ But I didn’t know what they had done to you. Void had never been used as a weapon before. By definition it can’t exist where things ARE. I still don’t know how the Grigori can contain it, can wield it.” He shook his head in frustration, curls shedding bits of debris.

“We never knew where to look for them. You Dragon Kings scoured the city. Harmodius knew me well enough that he put no chain to my wrist. I helped in the search, I studied your wounds. Then I faced my trial. Harmodius was kind and kept it private. I stood before the aggrieved alone – before Him, and Gaia, and Lucius, and you Nine.” In modern justice it would be considered unfair for the aggrieved to be the jury and judge. But with Harmodius it was only ever that way, and Harmodius was usually unfair. Creation was merciful, and Destruction was vindictive. And even now Gianfar was glad of it. Who knew what Justice would have done to him. True to form, Creation had been merciful.

He sped his words, rushing through the end, not wanting Yu to remember. “I told the court all that had passed between me and the Grigori. I begged that Silence and Tranquility and the others be spared, as my words were what had done the damage. They did end up facing punishment, but lesser ones.”

to be cont